UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT   LO^ 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

AND 

REMINISCENCES 

OF 

THEOPHILUS  NOEL 


CHICAGO: 

THEO.  NOEL  COMPANY  PRINT 
1904 


COPYRIGHT,  1904 
THEOPHILUS  NOEL 


I 


i 


CONTENTS 


Page 

PREFACE         ........  3 

INTRODUCTION            .......  5 

BOYHOOD  DAYS         .  7 

EARLY  INFLUENCES  AND  ENVIRONMENTS             .           .           .  15 

THE  SOUTH  IN  THE  EARLY  'FIFTIES         ....  30 

SECESSION  AND  ITS  VICTIMS            .....  48 

SIBLEY'S  RETREAT  FROM  SANTA  FE           .            .            .            .  61 

POLITICAL  AND  OTHERWISE             .....  76 

CAMPAIGNING  IN  LOUISIANA            .....  88 

WITH  MAGRUDER  AT  GALVESTON  .....  99 

PRISON  AND  PAROLE  .  .  .  .  .  .112 

THE  TAINT  OF  RASCALITY   ......  124 

LOUISIANA  RUM,  RUM,  RUM             .....  138 

IN  ANTE-BELLUM  DAYS        ......  155 

AN  EX-CONFEDERATE  MONUMENT               ....  164 

MORAL  AND  POLITICAL        ......  179 

A  FEW  FOUNDATION  PRINCIPLES    .....  189 

BUSINESS  INSIGHT      .......  201 

PATRIOTISM  VERSUS  SELF-INTEREST          ....  216 

THE  MEANING  OF  SUCCESS              .....  230 

FISH,  SNAKE,  AND  OTHER  STORIES            ...  245 
SOME  INSECT  AND  OTHER  TRUTHS             .            .            .            .272 

MEXICAN  NATIONAL  MUSEUM          .....  295 

ANOTHER  WAR  CHAPTER     ......  306 

MEXICO— CUBA  .  .  .  .  .  .  -315 

A  CHAPTER  FOR  YOUNG  MEN         .....  327 

ENGLAND        .  .  .  .  .  .  -335 

CALIFORNIA— WEST  COAST              .....  344 


None  but  the  brave  dare  step 
From  custom's  iron  rule; 

The  common  mind  must  follow  it, 
Or  be  esteemed  a  fool. 


Had  any  considerable  part  of  my  life  been  spent  in  trying 
to  do  as  others  have  done  or  were  doing — in  other  words, 
aping,  copying  after  or  imitating — the  world  never  would 
have  been  benefited  by  my  being  born. 

This  volume  is  so  different  from  any  other  you  ever  read, 
as  all  else  I  have  done  has  been,  and  is  different  from  the 
ordinary. 

To  follow  in  the  path  and  well  beaten  road,  as  others 
love  to  do,  never  had  any  charms  for  me. 

The  ways  of  others  have  never  been  my  ways;  and  that 
mine  was  popular  is  attested  by  the  great  number  of  thieves 
and  imitators,  counterfeiters  and  apes,  who  have  sought  to 
make — because  I  do — by  following  on  my  trail,  as  the  hyena 
follows  the  trail  of  the  lion,  or  the  coyote  that  of  the  trapper 
and  guide. 

It  is  to  and  from  the  criticism  of  the  smart  set,  the 
educated  apes  and  baboons,  that  I  owe  the  greater  part  of  my 
success  in  life,  in  all  the  many  and  varied  paths  and  ways  of 
my  own  blazing  in  new  and  unexplored  lands  and  enterprises 
that  have  resulted  in  public  benefaction. 

Egotism  came  to  me  \vith  old  age  and  from  looking  back- 
ward and  seeing  the  thousands  of  favored  and  educated  ones 
I  had  deemed  as  being  my  superiors,  left  far  in  the  rear  in 
the  race  of  life. 

Oftentimes  I  have  thought,  had  I  received  even  one-half 

5 


O  INTRODUCTION. 

of  a  common  school  education,  the  world  would  have  been  the 
better;  then  I  look  around  at  the  others  who  received  all  to 
be  had  in  that  line,  and  inethinks,  and  will  die  in  the  thought, 
that  it  was  well  as  it  was. 

I  have  written  this  book  while  traveling  across  and  up 
and  down  the  continent,  from  shore  to  shore,  and  all  but  from 
pole  to  pole,  and  while  crossing  the  ocean  and  traveling  on  the 
continent,  while  others,  and  the  very  highest  class,  were 
playing  cards,  reading  trashy  novels  or  engaged  in  other 
brain-debasing  amusements. 

This  work  has  all  been  talked  over  to  my  stenographer 
while  we  were  on  the  go;  for  my  life  is  yet  and  ever  will 
be  a  busy  one,  wherever  my  field  of  labor,  whether  it  be  in 
the  office,  on  the  farm,  or  where  else;  and  when  all  around 
is  still  and  others  are  enjoying  themselves,  my  time  is  business. 

The  great  American  jurist — and  soldier  as  well — Judge 
Gen.  Wallace,  in  rendering  a  decision  in  a  case  of  great 
importance  to  others  than  myself,  said :  "We  who  have 
known  Mr.  Noel  for  years  know  that  he  talks  out  in  plain 
language  and  as  he  thinks,  and  talks  to  all  as  he  does  to  wife, 
child,  dear  friend  or  most  desperate  foe."  And  this  I  have 
done  in  this  book;  and  I  have  no  apologies  to  make,  I  fear 
no  criticism. 

I  have  scorn  and  contempt  only  for  the  low-lived  ones  who 
assail  me  on  any  point;  for  well  I  know  that  no  honorable 
one,  who  has  done  his  best  to  leave  the  world  better  than  he 
found  it,  by  making  two  blades  grow  where  one  formerly 
grew,  as  I  have,  will  find  herein  other  than  the  truth  told 
in  my  own  way.  While  I  know  more  than  one  will  find 
thoughts  and  suggestions  presented  herein  that  will  be  a 
benefit,  I  also  know  there  are  thousands  who  fail  to  see  any- 
thing of  great  merit  in  any  great  book. 


BOYHOOD  DAYS. 


It  was  in  the  middle  of  the  year  when  the  campaign  cry 
was  hard  cider  and  log  cabins  that  I  was  born,  and  for  why 
I  ofttimes  think  I  love  apples  and  all  other  sorts  of  fruits  that 
will  make  as  many  good  things  as  they  do.  I  was  born  in  a 
log  cabin  on  a  puncheon  floor,  and  was  rocked  in  a  sap  trough. 
That  cabin  has  long  since  passed  away,  but  not  my  remem- 
brance of  it  and  of  its  environments,  the  tall  trees  of  the 
southwestern  part  of  the  Wolverine  State. 

Why  I  should  state  any  more  than  the  above  may  never 
be  satisfactorily  answered,  though  in  doing  what  I  am  and 
will  continue  to  do  ere  this  is  put  in  cold  type,  I  am  doing  that 
which  I  have  been  requested  to  do  by  many  who,  from  having 
known  me  to  have  been  engaged  in  many  business  enterprises 
in  many  countries  as  well  as  my  own,  and  that  I  had  served 
in  the  armies  of  more  than  one  government,  and  more  often 
on  the  side  that  did  not  win  out  than  on  the  one  that  did. 

My  early  boyhood  was  spent  on  a  stumpy,  rooty  farm  in 
the  wilderness,  as  it  was  then,  in  the  far  West.  Did  I  have 
a  gift  to  tell  of  things  that  occurred  as  they  might  be  told 
by  a  gifted  writer,  I  could  tell  of  things  that  occurred  to  me 
when  I  was  a  boy  that  would  be  unbelievable  by  the  boy  of 
this  day.  Few  boys  of  my  acquaintance  had  more  varied 
experiences  than  I. 

There  were  hunters*  in  those  days,  and  about  the  first  com- 
mercial transactions  that  I  remember  having  been  the  promoter 
of  was  the  melting  of  my  grandmother's  A.  B.  C.  pewter  plates 
and  running  them  in  elder  joints  that  my  older  brothers  had 
used  as  popguns,  and  selling  the  bars  for  lead.  I  was  possibly 
the  first  smelter  in  all  Michigan. 

7 


8  BOYHOOD  DAYS. 

The  plates  were  not  missed  until  I  had  to  make  a  con- 
fession of  what  I  had  done  by  reason  of  my  having  more  than 
a  quart  cup  of  pins  and  half  a  cup  of  needles  of  all  sizes  and 
sorts,  which  I  had  received  in  exchange  for  my  bars  at  prices 
of  my  own  making.  I  had  converted  quite  a  large  stock  of 
my  goods  into  Barlow  knives,  and  these  goods  were  converted 
into  all  sort  of  junk  th'e  boys  and  my  father's  employees  would 
bring  me,  and  never  at  their  prices,  but  my  own. 

I  need  not  tell  what  occurred,  or  the  punishment  I  received, 
when  it  was  found  out  that  a  stack  of  eight-inch  A.  B.  C. 
pewter  plates,  fully  ten  inches  high,  had  all  been  blown  away 
by  forty-cent  powder  at  squirrels,  coons  and  deer,  and  was 
not  to  be  collected  again.  The  punishment  I  received  was  a 
lesson  I  never  forgot.  And  I  never  afterwards  took  anything 
from  any  one  without  due  compensation,  for  I  have  found 
that  it  is  cheaper  to  pay  a  good  round  cash  price  for  anything 
than  to  just  take  it. 

My  stock  of  pins  and  needles  was  confiscated,  and  in  those 
days,  when  the  postage  on  a  letter  from  Virginia  was  twenty- 
five  cents,  and  when  a  man  only  got  twenty-five  cents  for 
splitting  one  hundred  and  twelve  rails,  pins  were  pins  and 
needles  were  needles.  Our  mothers  and  sisters  spun  their  own 
thread. 

The  confiscators  did  not  secure  my  stock  of  cutlery,  which 
I  was  soon  busy  converting  into  two-inch  in  diameter  two- 
cent  copper  pieces  of  United  States  coinage.  From  sales  made 
and  donations  received,  when  the  first  county  fair  in  Berrien 
County  was  held,  I  was  a  capitalist,  having  forty-eight  cents, 
which  was  about  forty  cents  more  than  any  other  boy  living 
in  the '"bend  of  the  river"  had. 

This  county  fair  was  a  great  affair  to  me,  and  possibly 
no  other  affair  of  my  life  was  more  deeply  engraved  on  my 
heart  of  steel.  Before  this  occurrence  the  biggest  crowd  of 
people  I  had  ever  seen  was  at  a  log-rolling  or  house-raising, 


BOYHOOD  DAYS.  9 

where  I,  a  boy,  was  kept  busy  providing  water  for  the  neigh- 
bors that  had  congregated  doing  the  work,  and  when  evening 
came  and  the  men  were  resting  and  telling  old  army  stories, 
and  the  young  men  were  having  a  good  time  with  young  lady 
acquaintances,  I  was  still  kept  busy  drawing  water  from  the 
bottom  of  that  fifty-foot  well  with  which  the  women  were  to 
wash  the  dishes.  After  which  the  candy-stretching  or  apple- 
paring  commenced.  For  be  it  understood  in  those  days,  in 
the  parts  where  I  was  born,  between  Hard-shell  Baptists, 
Methodists,  Presbyterians  and  Quakers,  there  was  no  dancing ; 
nay,  not  even  the  sound  of  a  fiddle.  These  were  the  biggest 
crowds  of  people  I  had  ever  seen  until  the  county  fair  came 
off,  and  I  shall  never  forget,  though  I  should  be  as  old  as 
Methuselah,  how  I  wondered  what  all  these  people  did  to 
make  a  living,  and  what  an  awful  dish-washing  night  this 
night  of  our  Lord  would  be. 

I  may  later  on  tell  what  my  father  was,  for  he  was  many 
things,  and  among  other  things  quite  a  farmer,  horticulturist 
and  stock  raiser,  and  the  exhibit  that  was  made  from  our  place 
in  all  these  lines  was  well  along  up  in  the  front  ranks  for 
premiums. 

Here  I  saw  my  first  buffalo,  my  first  beaver  and  my  first 
really  sure  enough  Indian  chief,  my  first  threshing  machine 
and  fanning  mill,  and  the  first  pretty  girl  I  ever  saw  in  all 
my  life  up  to  that  time.  I  never  saw  her  again. 

I  had  been  saving  up  my  money  for  this  occasion  to  make 
an  investment  that  would  bring  me  larger  dividends  than 
had  my  last,  and  something  that  might  not  be  confiscated.  I 
tried  to  buy  a  pair  of  guinea  fowls,  the  like  of  which  I  had 
never  seen  before;  but,  there  being  a  corner  on  guinea  fowls, 
the  price  was  too  high.  I  had  to  buy  something  of  use  to 
any  one  besides  myself  and  other  boys  of  my  own  age.  These 
were  happy  days  to  me  when  I  had  but  one  garment,  and  it 
had  but  one  pocket  in  it,  and  that  large  enough  to  contain  a 


IO  BOYHOOD   DAYS. 

first-class  stock  of  everything,  including,  of  course,  a  "hunk" 
of  maple  sugar,  marbles  and  what  else  might  be  given  to  me, 
for  I  had  been  broken  of  taking  anything. 

The  old  store  yet  stands  by  the  side  of  the  road  on  the 
bank  of  the  old  St.  Joe  River  in  Berrien  Springs,  where  I 
first  made  my  greatest  cash  financial  transaction.  Forty-two 
cents  counted  down  in  two-cent  pieces,  one  by  one,  paid  for  a 
two-blade  buckhorn-handled  knife,  the  big  blade  of  which  I 
was  able  to  open  with  the  assistance  orf  a  four-penny  nail  I 
found  in  my  pocket.  Not  one  of  the  boys  knew  of  my  pur- 
chase. On  going  home  about  sundown  I  poled  myself  to 
the  front  ranks,  and  after  much  effort  opened  my  knife,  which 
I  exhibited  much  as  the  great  financier  exhibited  his  holdings 
in  bonds  and  stocks  at  a  great  banquet  he  gave  in  New  York 
a  few  years  ago.  All  of  the  boys  wanted  to  handle  it,  but 
that  was  what  I  had  not  yet  done,  so,  bending  over  a  pawpaw 
bush,  manlike  I  undertook  toi  cut  it,  when  with  a  sound  peculiar 
to  knives  made  in  those  days  the  rivet  broke  and  the  blade 
flew  in  the  crowd  tQ  come  down  a  short  distance  off.  As  the 
howl  went  up  my  feathers  went  down.  I  had  but  four  cents 
left.  The  gunsmith  in  town  charged  me  five  cents  for  fixing 
in  the  rivet  again  and  kept  the  knife  more  than  a  month  before 
I  was  able  to  raise  the  other  cent.  That  man  died  in  the 
poorhouse,  and  I  helped  him  there  by  transferring  all  my  trade 
and  influence  to  the  gunsmith  who  aided  me  in  telling  what 

a  mean  man  "O C"  was  to  treat  a  good  honest  boy  as 

he  did  me.  I  never  treated  boy,  man,  nigger  or  Indian  that 
way,  which  accounts  for  the  large  number  of  I  O  U's  there 
are  out  over  the  country  in  my  favor,  and  always  will  be. 

Though  I  have  traveled  the  world  over,  so  to  say,  and 
been  engaged  in  many  enterprises  and  handled  large  sums  of 
money,  some  of  it  my  own,  I  never  was  a  gambler  and  not  a 
speculator  in  the  sense  the  word  implies  nowadays.  I  have 
never  found  one  man  so  smart  but  that  there  was  another  a 


BOYHOOD  DAYS.  II 

•little  smarter  than  he,  and  it  seems  to  me  that  few  others 
than  this  class  have  ever  tried  to  make  deals  with  me. 

There  is  but  one  thing  that  I  have  lived  to  perpetually 
regret,  and  that  is  that  I  did  not  turn  bad  boy  at  twelve  years 
of  age  and  run  away  from  home,  as  I  had  resolved  upon  doing, 
instead  of  staying  there  and  being  taken  to  Texas  when  I  was 
thirteen.  Had  I  done  so,  I  would  have  learned  the  black- 
smith's trade,  and  for  my  not  having  done  so  the  world  has 
lost  one  of  the  best  iron  workers,  smiths  and  machinists  that 
ever  honored  it,  for  from  infancy  I  was  a  Tubal  Cain  man. 
If  this  is  beyond  you  I  am  sorry  for  it,  for  if  you  knew  what 
it  meant  it  is  possible  that  you  could  understand  better  what 
I  may  hereafter  in  my  own  way  relate. 

My  early  religion  on  the  one  side,  my  good  mother's,  was 
of  the  Methodist  persuasion;  on  the  other  side,  O.  S.  P. 
Mother's  religion  was  all  right,  and  so  was  the  other  in  its 
way,  but  it  either  weighed  nothing  in  my  estimation  or  was 
altogether  too  weighty  to  come  within  the  sphere  of  my  com- 
prehension, and  this  reminds  me  of  a  truth  I  might  as  well 
narrate  here  as  elsewhere. 

I  never  went  to  school  a  day  in  my  life,  Sundays  not 
counted.  I  started  in  on  a  Cobb's  Speller  and  Pike's  Arith- 
metic, and  but  for  the  kindly  act  of  an  older  half-brother,  who 
brought  me  a  Webster's  Elementary  Spelling  Book,  to  which 
I  took  with  a  boy's  interest,  from  its  not  only  having  pictures 
but  also  some  good  stories  which  he  read  to  me,  my  education 
might  have  been  completely  neglected.  The  old  man — he  was 
a  doctor,  he  was — said  that  I  learned  more  of  the  lessons  than 
the  children  did  who  went  to  school  from  hearing  them  early 
in  the  morning  and  late  at  night ;  wherefore  he  kept  me  from 
my  earliest  remembrance  mixing  and  rolling  out  Cook's  pills, 
i.  e.,  calomel,  ipecac,  jalap  and  rhubarb,  equal  portions,  war- 
ranted to  do  all  sorts  of  devilment. 

Well,  I  took  to  Webster's  Elementary  Spelling  Book  like 


14  BOYHOOD  DAYS. 

and  ofttimes  cast-downwardness,  and  yet  I  have  had  sugar  in 
my  tea  and  cream  in  my  coffee,  and  I  have  heard  of  people 
who  have  said  a  good  word  about  me  and  what  I  have  done, 
but  they  were  so  seldom,  so  far  apart  and  ones  so  little  known 
that  they  never  made  a  fool  of  me. 


EARLY  INFLUENCES  AND  ENVIRONMENTS. 


Those  early  boyhood  experiences  of  mine  on  the  farm  in 
Michigan  were  not  so  unlike  those  oif  other  boys  of  that 
period  as  to  be  worthy  of  any  particular  notice,  as  I  now 
consider  it,  though  the  boy  of  that  day,  his  surroundings  and 
his  environments,  were  so  different  from  those  of  today  that 
it  would  only  give  my  reader  another  clue  to  question  my 
statements  and  doubt  my  entire  efforts  at  enlightenment,  were 
I  to  fairly,  honestly,  correctly  and  uncoloredly  give  the  same. 

The  fajnily  who  left  the  eastern  Alleghanies  to  cross  over 
into  the  valley  of  what  might  be  termed  Death  were  it  in 
Central  America  or  Africa,  who  penetrated  the  wilds  of  the 
woody  and  woolly  western  wilderness  of  Ohio  and  Indiana 
and  came  as  far  west  as  where  I  was  born,  were  people  who 
were  worthy  of  making  noble  empires;  worthy  descendants 
of  noble  sires;  the  founders  of  this  great  and  most  noble  of 
countries. 

The  boy  born  under  the  circumstances  which  at  best  existed 
at  that  time,  in  a  wilderness  of  woods,  as  I  was,  had  many 
sports  of  his  own,  but  of  a  character  that  would  be  considered 
droll  and  'way  back  in  these  days. 

It  was  from  having  been  put  to  bed  early  by  an  industrious 
mother,  in  order  that  she  might  do  her  work  up  before  she 
laid  her  tired  body  down  to  rest,  and  that  I  was  induced  to 
sleep  as  long  as  possible  until  after  I  had  acquired  a  certain 
age,  that  gave  me  strength  to  do  something  for  her.  Upon 
reaching  this  age  I  was  awakened  to)  tunes  more  loud  than 
charming,  and  sometimes  both  sounding  and  blistering.  Early 
habits  are  hard  to  get  rid  of,  as  I  have  found  through  life, 
and  "As  the  twig  is  bent,  so  shall  the  tree  incline."  I  have 

15 


l6  EARLY    INFLUENCES    AND    ENVIRONMENTS. 

always  found  myself  in  bed  early  at  night,  and  there  were  but 
few  of  the  fowls  that  had  come  off  of  their  perches  when  I 
was  around  looking  after  things. 

My  father  was  not  much  of  a  farmer.  He  did  all  this 
sort  of  work  by  proxy  while  he  "doctored"  the  people,  giving 
them  good  old  allopathic  powders,  and  talked  religion  and 
politics  and — well — once  in  a  while  sold  a  horse  and  bought 
something  or  took  somebody's  note  for  something  they 
thought  more  valuable  than  that  which  they  gave.  Really  and 
in  fact,  he  knew  about  as  much  about  farming  as  I  ever  did 
about  running  an  ocean  greyhound  or  a  naval  fighting  ma- 
chine. He  did  it  all  through  a  hired  man  and  mother  and 
me,  who  from  my  earliest  recollection  had  to  do  with  cows 
and  with  pigs  and  with  chickens  and  with  horses. 

My  lot  was  a  hard  one,  for  the  old  man  came  from  that 
old  F.  F.  V.  stock  who  believed  in  raising  boys  on  the  strap 
route,  and  who,  whether  the  boy  needed  it  or  not,  would 
administer  a  good  thrashing  on  the  proposition  that  he  would 
need  it  sooner  or  later  and  when  he  did  the  gad  might  not  be 
handy  or  the  old  man  might  not  be  around.  When  he  com- 
menced one  of  these  operations,  the  louder  the  boy,  that  is 
myself,  cried  and  hollered,  the  better  it  pleased  him.  He  got 
mad  if  you  didn't  holler,  so  you  were  sure  to  catch  refined 
cruelty,  jump  as  you  might.  Like  the  old  Virginia  nigger 
who  set  a  trap  to  catch  a  coon  or  possum,  squirrel  or  rat, 
and  turning  round  to  look  at  it  after  leaving  it  said:  "Dar 
den,  I'se  done  and  sot  it  to  cotch  him  comin'  or  goin',''  old 
dad's  trap  was  set  for  one  of  the  boys  all  the  while  just  that 
way. 

There  were  many  things  that  I  learned  on  the  farm,  as 
well  as  many  things  I  learned  about  old  dad,  that  I  never 
forgot.  Much  about  plowing  was  taught  me  by  a  yoke  of 
old  oxen,  who  when  the  dinner  horn  blew  started  for  the  house, 
mattering  not  what  part  of  the  field  they  were  in,  taking  me 


EARLY    INFLUENCES    AND    ENVIRONMENTS.  1? 

and  the  plow  along,  unless,  after  having  given  me  a  very  short 
space  of  time  in  which  to'  unhitch,  I  had  done  so.  Old  Broad, 
that  was  the  nigh  ox,  used  to  kick  me  with  as  much  impunity 
as  old  dad  used  to  thrash  me,  only  he  was  not  mean  about  it. 
for  he  always  looked  around  and  seemed  to  sympathize  with 
me  and  say  as  much  as  "Do  not  come  too  near  next  time." 

Mentioning  dinner  horns  reminds  me  that  the  same  old 
dinner  horn  which  was  left  on  the  place  when  we  moved  away 
did  service  in  blowing  the  wolves,  bears,  panthers  and  wild 
cats  away  from  the  sheepfold  which  was  very  close  to  the 
cabin,  and  when  well  sounded  came  near  resembling  a  Missis- 
sippi calliope  or  an  ocean  foghorn  as  can  be  imagined. 

Lanterns  were  used  in  those  days  to  keep  away  the  wild 
animals,  and  the  boy  who  could  not  make  a  pawpaw  whistle 
that  would  sound  long  and  loud  would  never  be  able  to  take 
an  ax  and  an  auger  and  draw-knife  and  go  out  in  the  woods 
and  cut  down  a  tree  and  make  a  plow  stock  or  an  ox  yoke, 
which  I  have  done  more  than  once  before  I  was  twelve  years 
old.  The  boys  in  those  days  esteemed  themselves  valuable  in 
proportion  to  what  they  could  do,  and  the  ones  who  could 
only  look  pretty  and  giggle  and  go  with  the  girls,  who  always 
petted  them  while  they  admired  the  other  fellow,  were  the 
ones  who  left  no  mark  behind  them  in  passing  away;  while 
we — that  is,  I  and  my  compeers — went  out  and  conquered 
the  world,  and  by  our  brave,  heroic,  noble  and  enduring 
unselfishness  and  faithful  acts  can  look  back — from  1904 — 
and  see  what  no  ten  thousand  generations  of  men  who  have 
lived,  or  may  have  lived  since  the  birth  of  Adam,  have  lived 
to  see  in  the  way  of  advancement  of  all  that  is  noble  and  grand 
and  enduring  in  science  and  art,  inventions  and  improvements 
and  all  that  brings  man  nearer  his  Creator,  in  the  image  of 
whom  he  was  created.  We  boys  of  the  seventies  and  eighties 
of  winter-marks  can  point  back  and  say,  "There  is  our  record," 
and  with  no  small  pride  say,  "If  you  would  know  more  of  us, 


l8  EARLY    INFLUENCES    AND    ENVIRONMENTS. 

look  around  you."  'And  if  in  bidding  farewell  to  the  world 
you  would  be  able  to  say  that  you  left  it  better  than  you  found 
it,  go  ye  and  do  likewise,  and,  like  us,  plant  without  pay  or 
the  prospect  of  profit  if  you  but  know  that  in  planting  others 
are  to  come  after  you  and  enjoy  the  fruits  of  your  labor. 

It  is  my  belief  that  there  never  lived  a  race  of  people,  or 
any  section  of  any  race  of  people,  that  ever  had  such  cause  to 
be  thankful  to  their  Creator  and  prouder  of  themselves,  than 
we,  the  first  and  second  descendants  of  the  founders  of  this 
great  government  of  liberty,  have  reason  to  be;  and  also 
cometh  our  ever  present  adoration  and  gratitude,  love  and 
remembrance  of  those  who  made  it  possible  for  us  to  do  what 
we  have  done,  by  and  from  the  foundation  of  a  government 
for  the  people  and  by  the  people,  of  human  liberty  and  rights 
that  all  might  enjoy  alike,  and  of  a  protection  which  said  to 
the  man  who  had  brains  in  that  line,  Go  thou  and  invent,  and 
thou  shalt  have  the  reward  of  thy  inventions ;  and  to  the 
planter,  Go  thou  and  plant,  and  thou  shalt  have  the  reward 
of  thy  reaping;  and  to  the  builder,  Go  thou  and  build,  and 
thy  house  shalt  be  thy  castle;  and  to  the  preacher,  Go  thou 
forth  and  preach,  and  according  as  thou  teachest  so  be  it  unto 
thee  for  weal  or  for  woe.  This  Government  of  ours  has 
rewarded  every  man  in  proportion  to  his  ability  and  honest 
integrity,  and  it  is  only  the  ungrateful  and  the  dullard  and 
the  laggard  who  has  not  participated  in  its  great  benefits, 
blessings  and  endowments. 

My  early  religious  training  has  been  referred  to  before. 
This  training  was  of  a  dual  character.  Dad  was  an  O.  S.  P., 
who  believed  in  infant  damnation  and  the  elect,  aye,  long 
before  birth,  and,  of  course,  of  which  he  was  one,  and  there- 
fore as  king,  prophet  and  priest  to  all  under  his  power.  Of 
course  the  king,  the  prophet  and  the  priest  could  do  no  harm 
or  wrong,  and  therefore  \vas  immune  from  all  such  as  measles. 
whooping  cough,  smallpox  and  yellow  fever  and  anything  in 


EARLY    INFLUENCES    AND    ENVIRONMENTS.  19 

the  way  of  the  devil's  temptations  and  trials.  On  the  other 
hand,  my  mother  was  a  good  old  W.  M.,  who  with  their 
doctrine  and  belief  made  it  possible  for  any  one  to  get  there, 
and  put  me  as  a  boy  to>  thinking,  "Well,  how  will  you  get  on. 
and  how  will  you  get  off?" 

One  seemed  to  say: 

"You'll  be  damned  if  you  do  and  you'll  be  damned  if  you  don't, 
You'll  be  damned  if  you  will  and  you'll  be  damned  if  you  won't, 
You'll  be  damned  if  you  can  and  you'll  be  damned  if  you  can't, 
You'll  be  damned  if  you  shall  and  you'll  be  damned  if  you  shan't ;" 

While  the  other  seemed  to  say  to  me : 

"There  is  a  fountain  filled  with  blood, 

Drawn  from  an  Emanuel's  veins ;    *    *    * 

The  dying  thief  rejoiced  to  see 
That  fountain  in  his  day; 

And  there  may  I,  though  vile  as  he, 
Wash  all  my  sins  away." 

If  a  boy  raised  under  these  conditions  failed  to  have  any 
religious  convictions,  it  was  not  because  the  foundation  was 
not  there  for  him  to  start  on. 

I  might  as  well  tell  it  now  as  to  let  it  crop  out  against  me 
hereafter,  that  from  my  earliest  infancy  I  was  considered  the 
black  sheep  of  the  flock  and  so  treated,  especially  by  the  old 
man,  who  found  in  me  one  who  wanted  to  know  the  why  and 
the  wherefore  and  the  "thisly  of  the  thusly"  in  all  matters  and 
questions  that  either  related  to  my  future  or  with  the  inter- 
ference of  my  present  peaceful,  restful  attitude. 

I  never  believed  in  doing  anything  until  it  was  necessary  to 
be  done,  and  never  starting  at  the  job  until  after  having  thor- 
oughly considered  all  the  points  bearing  on  its  conclusion  at  the 
least  possible  expense  of  manual  labor,  and  especially  at  the 
expense  of  money  already  in  the  bank.  From  my  earliest  rec- 
ollection I  saw  fools  fooling  away  their  time,  doing  some- 


2O  EARLY    INFLUENCES    AND    ENVIRONMENTS. 

thing,  spending  strength  and  energy,  that  could  not  possibly 
bring  them  any  returns.  I  have  seen  men  in  my  day  come 
forth  with  their  millions  of  money,  "which  they  had  aired," 
of  course,  and  throw  it  away,  just  as  I  have  seen  Jack  Wilson 
make  an  ox  of  himself  by  handling  logs,  clearing  up  ground 
that  would  not  sprout  black-eyed  peas  or  raise  buckwheat  after 
he  had  cleared  it  off. 

I  well  remember  hearing  the  old  Hard-shell  Baptist  min- 
ister tear  off  his  sermons  at  the  Reynold's  schoolhouse,  where 
he  orated  once  every  moon  and  Brother  McGill  orated  the 
other  moon,  Methodist  fashion.  And  then  how  the  Dunk- 
ards  held  forth,  when  no  man  orated,  only  as  the  spirit  moved. 
And  how  from  hearing  these  different  people  out  in  the  coun- 
try talk  in  the  schoolhouse,  as  well  as  from  hearing  the  O.  S.  P. 
"Doctor"  talk  from  the  high  pulpit  to  the  high-backed  pews, 
ever  less  than  one-half  filled,  that  I  became  very  much"  con- 
fused in  my  early  theological  professions,  the  more  and  more 
that  I,  as  a  boy,  thought  of  the  different  propositions,  the 
more  and  more  I  became  convinced  of  /hypocrisy,  and  the 
more  I  became  convinced  of  the  true  light,  that  the  truth  was 
more  powerful  than  the  king,  man,  wine  or  woman,  and  that 
he  who  would  ask  for  more  light,  and  be  governed  by  its 
shedding  and  would  live  by  the  truth  jthat  that  light  gave 
forth,  would  stand  nearer  that  great  Architect  and  Giver  of 
all  good  than  would  any  caterwauling,  hypocritical  sycophant, 
who,  like  a  pauper  and  a  beggar,  was  ever  asking,  forever 
begging  and  praying  for  more  and  never  giving  thanks  for 
anything;  while  he  who  thanked  or  was  truly  thankful  for 
the  little  favors  received,  larger  favors  and  blessings  were 
showered  upon  him  as  the  years  roll  around. 

It  has  been  my  firm  religious  belief  that  the  great  God 
who  ruleth  all  and  made  all  has  no  rewards  for  the  praying 
mendicant,  no  more  than  I  have  for  the  lazy  beggar  and 
pauper  who  comes  to  my  door  time  and  again;  but  that 


EARLY    INFLUENCES   AND    ENVIRONMENTS.  21 

that  great  Creator  has  reward  here  on  earth  for  him  who  re- 
turns thanks  and  asks  himself  Where  shall  I  spread  it  that 
I  may  show  yet  my  greater  thankfulness?  These  are  the 
people  who  have  made  the  world  what  it  is  in  the  last  fifty 
years.  These  are  the  ones  who  have  never  stopped  to  ques- 
tion as  to  what  the  harvest  would  be,  but  they  sowed  and 
toiled  and  reaped  to  be  rewarded  greatly. 

I  shall  never  forget,  though  my  name  be  used  in  the  Good 
Book  instead  of  M,ethuselah's  because  of  my  great  age,  my 
first  show,  or  rather  P.  T.  Barnum's  first  exhibition  in  west- 
ern Michigan  with  Tom  Thumb.  Why  the  old  man  got  so 
good  as  to  allow  me  to  go  to  that  show  I  never  knew,  and 
he  never  knew  one-half  of  what  I  found  out,  or  of  the 
thoughts  it  gave  me  to  think  of  when  I  was  out  in  the  field 
hoeing  corn,  feeding  the  hogs  or  digging  the  potatoes. 

This  show  was  an  inspiration  to  me.  It  was  a  whole 
schoolhouse,  academy  and  college  combined,  and  told  me 
more  than  any  person  on  earth  ever  learned  from  reading 
Rollins'  Ancient  History,  Plutarch's  Lives  or  the  nine  big 
volumes  of  Scott's  Commentaries  on  the  Holy  Bible  and  New 
Testament,  and  was  a  greater  aid  than  mother's  Watt's  Hymn 
Book  of  good  old  W.  M.  meters  in  giving  me  the  true  light 
and  telling  me  the  truth.  For  there  at  this  show  I  saw  things 
as  they  were  and  as  I  have  seen  heaven  on  earth  many  times, 
and  not  as  somebody  described  them  to  me. 

I  went  there  a  capitalist.  I  had  twenty-five  cents 
of  my  own  good  money  and  a  good  brother-in-law  gave  me 
twenty-five  cents  extra,  not  thinking  that  dad's  stingy  old  heart 
had  been  opened  to  the  amount,  and  who  thought  that  I  had 
only  been  allowed  to  go  to  town  that  day  with  no  spending: 
privileges.  Well,  I  took  in  two  or  three  of  the  ten-cent  side 
shows  which  were  being  "barked"  by  loud-mouthed  individ- 
uals, who,  like  many  others  whom  I  have  seen  in  this  world, 
painted  the  pictures  bigger  and  better  than  my  boyish  im- 


22  EARLY    INFLUENCES    AND    ENVIRONMENTS. 

agination  admitted  of  being  painted.  However  I  was  satis- 
fied in,  each  and  every  case.  When  the  big  drum  commenced 
to  beat  and  the  big  show  gate  began  to  open  and  the  lions 
commenced  roaring  and  the  tiger  commenced  howling  and 
other  big  noises  sounded  from  within,  in  the  rush  I  forgot  the 
ticket  wagon  and  I  think  that  this  was  the  first  time  that  I 
ever  got  something  for  nothing,  and  P.  T.  Barnum  did  not 
get  my  quarter. 

The  elephants  and  the  zebras  were  near  the  door  as  I  went 
into  the  mammoth  tent,  which  seemed  to  me  to  be  as  big  as 
our  northwest  cornfield  in  which  I  had  been  hoeing  the  day 
before  in  the  hot  sun.  However,  I  made  the  circuit  of  the 
tent  and  took  in  everything.  Nothing  escaped  my  eye.  I 
ran  up  against  the  clown  and  he  funnied  so  funny  that  I  just 
laid  down  on  the  ground  and  laughed  and  felt  good  all  over 
and  was  glad  that  I  was  a  boy  and  was  there.  And  then 
I  took  in  Tom  Thumb  playing  the  part  of  Napoleon,  and  the 
man  who  had  no  arms  and  played  the  fiddle  and  opened  big 
jackknives  and  threw  them  out  to  the  farmer  boys  and  who 
cracked  walnuts  and  did  many  other  things  with  his  toes  that 
others  could  not  do  with  their  hands. 

And  then  I  ran  up  against  the  lemonade  man,  and  if  I 
had  ever  heard  of  lemonade  or  the  name  I  had  forgotten 
it,  and  to  hear  that  man — his  voice  still  rings  in  my  ears — 
"Oh,  ye  farmer  boys!  Bring  up  your  best  gal,  here,  for  a 
glass  of  this  ice-cold  lemonade.  Made  a  thousand  feet  under 
ground,  where  it  is  lighted  by  diamonds,  drawn  up  in  golden 
buckets  hung  on  silver  chains,  and  here  I  give  it  to  you  in 
golden  cups  at  only  three  cents  a  cup!"  Well,  as  might  be 
expected  of  a  capitalist  like  myself,  of  course  I  had  to  try  the 
lemonade.  But  I  espied  a  young  man  who  had  recently  come 
to  our  neighborhood,  named  Hank  Harris,  who  had  in  tow 
Miss  Liza  Reynolds  and  her  little  sister  Frances,  who  soon 
thereafter  and  forever  towed  him.  Hank  yanked  his  gal  up 


EARLY    INFLUENCES   AND    ENVIRONMENTS.  23 

and  asked  for  a  glass  of  the  beverage,  with  which  went  a 
small-sized  cake,  a  little  larger  than  my  two-cent  copper  piece. 
Hank  took  a  sup  and  Lize  took  a  sup  and  Frances  took  a  sup 
and  still  there  was  some  left,  which  Hank  finished  and,  smack- 
ing his  lips,  said :  "It  is  a  perfect  imposition !  It  is  one-half 
water !" 

This  set  me  to  questioning  that  investment,  for  early  in 
life  I  abhorred  ''watered  stock"  or  dilutions  or  substitutions 
of  any  sort. 

The  pleasures  of  my  boyhood  days  were  few,  but  they 
were  great  and  lasting.  The  first  that  came  was  the  sugar- 
making  season.  Each  tree  was  tapped  by  chopping  a  deep 
notch  slantwise  in  it  and  a  spike  was  inserted  which  conveyed 
the  sap  to  a  trough  made  by  splitting  a  basswood  log  a  foot 
or  more  in  diameter  and  scooping  it  out  with  an  adz  as  a  canoe 
would  be  made.  This  trough — the  sort  which  was  my 
cradle — was  put  under  the  spile  and  we  boys  and  the  young 
men  had  to  collect  the  sap  night  and  day,  while  the  men  and 
women  attended  to  the  boiling  of  the  kettles,  which  were  set 
.on  the  range,  all  of  which  was  hard  work.  But  the  fun  came 
in  when  the  boiling  off  season  commenced.  This  was  when 
the  molasses  or  syrup  was  boiled  down  to  sugar  and  when 
the  young  folks  collected  and  made  molasses  candy,  as  it  would 
be  termed  in  these  days,  the  stretching  or  pulling  of  wh^ch 
was  fun  which  had  no  equal  in  all  the  country  round. 

This  job  over,  the  next  would  be  when  it  came  to  making: 
cider,  apple  butter  and  having  apple-paring  bees.  Then  it 
was  that  the  young  folks  came  together  again  and  the  sound 
of  merriment  and  joy  and  pleasure  was  heard  in  all  the  land. 
Then  came  the  corn  husking,  and  finally,  as  a  wind-up  to  the 
season's  joys,  harvesting,  reaping  and  threshing  and  the  hog- 
killing  time,  and  with  it  soon  after  the  joyous  Christmas 
times,  for  then,  not  as  now,  Thanksgiving  Day  was  not  much 
observed. 


24  EARLY    INFLUENCES    AND    ENVIRONMENTS. 

Between  hard  work  and  sound  sleep  the  boys  of  those  days 
had  but  little  time  to  go  together,  except  on  Sundays,  when 
we  met  at  the  local  schoolhouse  to  hear  some  "sky  pilot"  ex- 
patiate on  the  beauties  of  a  land  and  its  inhabitants  that  we 
know  not  more  of  than  about  the  man  and  his  wife  in  the 
moon,  and  to  tell  us  of  that  which  no  one  could  dispute. 
Those  who  believed  were  unable  to  dispute  anything. 

The  boys  who  went  to  school  had  a  good  time,  but  my 
old  dad  thought  he  had  wisdom,  knowledge  and  schooling 
enough  for  the  whole  family,  who  in  his  estimation  needed 
only  to  know  the  three  R's.  He  thought  the  same  way  about 
religion,  but  I  thought  different  on  both  subjects,  and  for  why 
I  got  another  black  mark.  And  because  he  thought  as  he 
did  and  taught  as  he  did  I  took  the  contrary  side  on  the  ques- 
tion, and  for  why  I  am  what  I  am  and  where  I  am. 

I  never  in  all  my  life  had  time  enough  to  attend  to  other 
people's  business.  As  a  general  proposition  I  had  enough 
to  do  to  attend  to  my  own  and  I  had  so  much  to  attend  to  that 
I  had  to  rely  upon  the  aid  and  assistance  of  others  who  have 
often  betrayed  me,  who  were  often  incompetent  and  who  were 
often  absolutely  unworthy  of  any  sort  of  trust,  else  I  might 
have  had  some  wealth  today  and  not  be  compelled  to  travel 
about  this  country  in  a  common  Pullman  sleeping  car,  except- 
ing on  extraordinary  occasions  a  drawing-room.  Yet,  not- 
withstanding, nevertheless,  I  have  been  able  to  get  there  when 
I  wanted  to  go,  and  it  never  was  from  the  advice,  free  counsel, 
aid  or  assistance  of  any  one  else  that  I  was  able  to  do  so. 

Good  counsel  and  good  advice  is  a  great,  grand,  good  thing: 
to  take,  but  unless  you  have  very  good  brains  and  your  com- 
pass box  is  right  and  can  never  be  made  to  point  wrong,  you 
will  not  be  able  to  know  which  the  good  advice  is.  I  have 
often  been  given  as  much  good  advice  as  the  common  run  of 
bad  boys,  and  I  have  listened  to  it  as  little  as  any  good,  sensi- 
ble boy  would.  I  have  found  that  these  are  the  people  who 


EARLY    INFLUENCES    AND    ENVIRONMENTS.  25 

are  always  carrying  coals  to  their  own  bins,  and  who  listens 
to  them  sooner  or  later  finds  himself  in  the  condition  of  the 
boy  who  was  going  to  school  and  who  met  an  old  man  with 
a  scythe  blade  who  stopped  him  and  told  him  that  he  was  "a 
good-looking  boy,  he  was,  and  a  nice  boy,  he  was,"  and  after 
asking  him  his  name  told  him  that  he  remembered  him  and 
that  he  had  heard  so  many  nice  things  about  him  and  other- 
wise cajoled  the  boy  into  turning  a  grindstone  while  he  ground 
his  scythe  blade  at  the  boy's  muscular  expense  and  great 
labor — (did  you  ever  turn  a  grindstone?) — then  turned  upon 
the  boy  and  said :  "Now,  you  little  truant,  you,  run  with  all 
your  might  to  school  or  I  will  see  that  your  teacher  gives  you 
a  trouncing  for  being  late." 

I  never  had  but  one  such  as  this  played  on  me  and  I  have 
never  forgotten  the  Quaker's  saying  that  "If  a  man  fool  thee 
once  it  is  his  fault;  if  twice  it  is  thy  fault." 

Whenever  I  have  undertaken  to  attend  to  other  people's 
business  I  soon  found  myself  in  more  business  of  an  unpleas- 
ant nature  than  I  could  conveniently  cast  off.  I  once  found 
myself  in  the  condition  of  the  honest  Dutchman,  having  agreed, 
like  him,  to  be  the  arbitrator  between  two  neighbors  having 
a  dispute,  both  threatening  law.  I  was  then  a  much  younger 
man  than  I  am  now  and  had  more  confidence  in  myself  than 
I  have  now.  The  neighborhood  all  congregated  and  I  took 
my  seat  as  judge,  umpire  and  arbitrator.  After  hearing  one 
side  I  was  ready  to  give  judgment;  but  when  I  heard  both 
sides,  like  the  Dutchman  I  was  preparec1  to  say,  "Now  who 
gives  shugment,  I  vants  to  know  ?" 

Other  people's  perplexities  have  always  been  greater  than 
my  own,  because  by  thought  and  deep  meditation,  coupled 
with  a  desire  to  do  right  in  all  cases  and  even  meet  more  than 
on  the  half-way  point,  I  could  solve  and  settle  my  own  dif- 
ferences and  troubles,  but  not  those  of  others,  for  I  have  found 


26  EARLY    INFLUENCES    AND    ENVIRONMENTS. 

man  a  most  unreasonable  creature,  imbued  with  such  selfish- 
ness as  to  becloud  his  seeing  the  rights  of  others. 

The  first  book  I  ever  remember  having  read  was  "Weems' 
Life  of  Washington."  It  filled  my  very  young  soul  with 
patriotic  impulses,  as  it  never  failed  to  do  to  and  with  all  others. 
After  having  read  it  through,  little  snatches  at  a  time,  I  was 
asked  by  one  of  my  neighbors  which  part  of  it  I  liked  best  and 
I  quickly  told  him,  "That  part  where  Washington  was  of- 
fered a  crown  and  refused  it." 

This  came  from  my  natural  inborn  hatred  to  all  kinds  of 
monarchs,  despots  and  tyrants,  and  for  why  to  this  day  I  love 
the  honest,  outspoken,  free  and  noble  American  citizen. 

My  father  was  an  old  man  when  I  was  born;  my  mother 
not  a  young  woman.  He  had  practically  raised  and  set  off 
a  family  of  older  children  before  I  came  into  the  world  to  make 
trouble.  The  former  he  had  given  a  good  education  and  such 
advantages  as  the  schools  of  the  day  were  able  to  give.  In 
1853  he  became  very  much  incensed  at  the  tax  laws  and  what 
else  I  need  not  mention,  and  resolved  upon  going  to  Texas. 
Having  about  the  best  property  there  was  in  that  section  of  the 
country,  he  was  not  long  in  disposing  of  it  to  a  man  who  four 
years  before  had  been  his  chief  wood  chopper  and  rail  split- 
ter, named  Calvin  Blake.  Blake  and  his  three  grown  up 
boys  came  to  my  father's  house  in  '48,  I  well  remember  the 
time  and  place,  and  told  him  that  they  were  going  to  Cali- 
fornia. 

At  losing  such  a  good  servant  the  old  man  became  very 
much  incensed,  but  it  did  not  interfere  with,  Blake's  going. 
In  September,  1853,  a  few  days  after  the  old  man  had  adver- 
tised his  holdings,  my  mother  and  I  saw  Blake  and  his  three 
boys  coming  down  the  lane  to  the  house,  and  she  called  my 
father  out.  I  remember  hearing  the  old  man  say,  "They've 
come  back  again  and  after  a  job  and  I  won't  let  them  have 


EARLY    INFLUENCES    AND    ENVIRONMENTS.  27 

it.  They  were  not  governed  by  my  advice  and^I  won't  give 
them  a  job.  They'll  have  to  hunt  somewheres  else." 

The  old  man  received  them  blindly,  as  he  was  capable  of 
doing,  for  he  had  that  divine  power  that  St.  Paul  speaks  of : 
"Be  ye  able  to  be  unto  all  men  all  things  at  all  times." 

After  the  Blakes  had  been  seated  he  commenced  pumping 
them  about  their  trip  to  California  and  back,  at  which  he  made 
slow  progress,  for  the  Blakes  were  like  clams  on  all  subjects 
they  know  anything  about  or  should  have  known  anything 
about  and  never  thought  of  anything  they  cared  nothing  for. 
After  the  old  man  had  about  exhausted  his  patience  and  time  in 
trying  to  find  out  something,  Blake  said:  "Doctor,  I  see 
that  you  have  advertised  your  place  for  sale  and  I  would  like  to 
know  what  your  price  is." 

Whereupon  the  old  man  replied:  "It  would  be  of  little 
interest  to  you." 

"Well,"  said  Blake,  "some  men  came  back  with  me  who 
want  to  buy  a  place  like  yours."  (He  referred  to  his  sons.) 

Dad  said,  "Well,  well,  whoever  buys  my  place  must  buy 
my  other  property  and  take  all  of  my  holdings  in  the  State 
of  Michigan  and  pay  spot  cash  down,"  and  gave  the  figures. 

"How  much  money  do  you  want  as  earnest  money  to  close 
the  bargain?" 

"Five  thousand  dollars,"  old  man  Noel  replied. 

Whereupon  he  was  told  to  draw  up  a  receipt  for  that 
amount,  and  in  less  time  than  it  takes  to  tell  it  five  thousand 
dollars  of  new,  pure,  lately  coined  California  gold  was  stacked 
up  and  he  was  told  that  the  balance  would  be  at  the  bank  in 
the  town  as  soon  as  he  could  make  the  deeds  out. 

"To  whom  shall  the  deeds  be  made?" 

"To  Calvin  Blake!" 

Old  dad  waked  up  to  the  realization  of  a  changed  condi- 
tion, for  from  being  a  wood  chopper  and  rail  splitter  Calvin 
Blake  was  the  richest  man  in  all  southwest  Michigan.  Oft- 


28  EARLY    INFLUENCES    AND    ENVIRONMENTS. 

times  I  have  thought  of  this  deal  and  the  man  who  made  it, 
and  ofttimes  I  have  thought  of  how  Calvin  Blake  was  not 
going  to  get  a  job  and  of  how  the  other  man  got  done  out  of  a 
home. 

The  price  named  was  about  one-third  more  than  the  old 
man  really  would  have  sold  for.  I  never  believed  that  up 
to  that  time  he  ever  intended  to  sell,  though  I,  a  boy,  like  all 
other  boys,  was  keen  to  travel  and  wanted  him  to  sell.  Blake 
got  the  place  and  with  it  all  the  stock  and  everything  else  that 
the  old  man  owned,  including  notes,  mortgages,  etc.,  and  what 
was  always  the  most  interesting  part  to  me,  he  got  ninety 
acres  of  wheat  which  I  had  planted  and  drilled  in  myself. 
With  the  place  went  the  three  years'  crop  of  wheat  in  the  bins 
and  two  years'  crop  of  oats  and  corn  shelled  and  stored  away. 

We  left  Michigan  for  Texas  on  the  twenty-third  day  of 
November,  1853.  Early  in  1854  the  Crimean  War  was  de- 
clared. The  wheat  in  the  bins  was  sold  for  $1.75  per  bushel, 
and  wheat  which  we  had  planted  and  which  Blake  harvested 
was  sold  for  $2.25  per  bushel,  corn,  oats  and  hay  at  a  propor- 
tionately large  advancement,  which  realized  enough  to  pay 
for  the  entire  place  and  all  that  belonged  thereto,  since  there 
were  four  thousand  bushels  of  wheat  which  Blake  got  on  a 
basis  of  forty-one  cents  per  bushel. 

When  Blake  closed  the  contract  with  the  old  man,  then 
his  mouth  opened  and  his  tongue  loosened  up  and  he  could 
outtalk  a  New  England  maid.  This  was  a  great  lesson  to  me 
through  life,  and  I  never  had  a  piece  of  property,  house  or 
anything  else  to  sell  but  that  I  wondered  if  Russia  was  going 
to  get  into  another  difficulty. 

If  you  have  read  this  far  in  my  book  I  can  promise  in  ad- 
vance that  you  will  read  further.  From  now  on  my  life  com- 
mences, and  I  propose  to  tell  of  its  first  lessons  and  achieve- 
ments and  failures  as  well,  and  to  tell  of  it  in  such  a  way  as 
to  be  more  instructive,  possibly,  than  interesting,  for  I  want 


EARLY    INFLUENCES    AND    ENVIRONMENTS.  2Q 

my  reader  to  understand  that  I  am  not  writing  this  book  and 
going  to  the  great  expense  of  having  it  published  for  any  self- 
glorification  or  laudation,  but  with  a  view  to  benefiting  those 
who  may  read  it,  and  especially  the  young  man  whom  it  may 
cause  to  think.  I  cannot  write  of  my  own  acts  and  deeds  as 
I  could  of  another's,  and  I  feel  myself  unable  to  do  the  sub- 
ject justice  without  putting  in  a  considerable  amount  of 
egotism,  do  the  best  I  may  to  prevent  it. 

I  am  not  going  to  give  you  any  blood-and-thunder,  Indian 
painted,  scalping,  romance  lies,  but  I  am  going  to  narrate  to 
you  things  as  they  were  and  as  I  saw  them,  both  as  relates 
to  matters  of  business,  war,  science  and  all  questions  on  in- 
ternal improvement  as  well  as  infernal  rascalities.  I  feel  that 
in  one  sense  I  am  competent  to  do  justice  on  this  score,  for 
there  lives  not  a  man  on  earth  today — or  woman  either — to 
whom  I  owe  one  cent  of  a  debt  that  I  cannot  pay  a  million 
for;  that  there  has  never  lived  on  earth  a  man — or  woman 
either — to  whom  I  owe  or  ever  owed  one  iota  of  gratitude  for 
any  acts  of  kindness  of  any  sort  of  nature  whatsoever  but  that 
I  have  paid,  not  with  compound  interest,  but  with  double  prin- 
cipal. And  there  lives  not  a  soul  on  earth  today  for  whom 
I  have  other  than  kind  feelings ;  and  yet  I  have  had  in  my  days 
some  notable  enemies,  and  some  more  than  common,  men  of 
the  common  sort  who,  like  chaff,  always  went  with  the  win- 
ning side  or  the  way  the  wind  blew. 


THE  SOUTH  IN  THE  EARLY   FIFTIES. 


In  going  to  Texas  in  November,  1853,  we  arrived  in  Chi- 
cago at  four  o'clock  in  the  morning,  coming  in  on  a  long  tres- 
tle-work through  Lake  Michigan  to  reach  the  foot  of  Ran- 
dolph street,  which  is  now  all  settled  and  has  been  for  many 
years.  Where  that  trestle  stood  now  stands  great  sky-scrap- 
ping business  buildings.  We  took  breakfast  at  the  Sherman 
House,  which  is  still  doing  business  at  the  old  stand — my  first 
in  a  first-class  hotel  where  meals  were  served  in  courses.  I 
shall  never  forget  how  I  thought,  "Well,  is  this  all  we  are 
going  to  get?" 

We  left  Chicago  at  seven-thirty  in  the  morning  on  the 
Rock  Island  Railroad,  whose  terminus  was  at  La  Salle,  111. 
One  train  down  and  one  train  back  per  day,  freight,  passen- 
ger, baggage  and  mail,  all  pulled  by  one  engine,  which  today 
has  no  counterpart  in  existence,  which  today  would  compare 
with  the  Mogul  pulling  this  train  that  I  am  now  traveling  on 
as  this  is  being  dictated,  as  a  monkey  might  be  compared  to 
a  big  mule  both  as  to  size  and  in  strength.  It  took  two  fire- 
men to  fire  that  engine,  an  oiler  and  an  engineer,  and  Mr. 
Czar  of  Russia  could  not  put  on  more  airs  than  that  engineer 
did,  while  the  conductor  of  the  train  was  bejeweled  and  be- 
dabbled with  all  sorts  of  pewter,  brass  and  copper  plates.  We 
children  thought  that  they  were  immense. 

Chicago  was  then  but  a  small  town  of  which  I  saw  but 
little,  for  we  children  were  all  anxious  to  see  the  great  "Illi- 
nois Prairie  and  Mount  Joliet  in  the  Distance,"  which  was 
the  title  of  a  picture  in  our  newly  acquired  school  geography 
and  atlas,  from  which  we  expected  to  see  something  similar 
to  the  mountains  mother  had  described  to  us  as  having  crossed 

30 


THE  SOUTH    IN    THE  EARLY    FIFTIES.  3! 

in  coming  from  where  our  big  oysters  now  come.  Mount 
Joliet  proved  to  be  about  forty  feet  high,  two  or  three  hun- 
dred feet  wide  and  a  quarter  of  a  mile  long  and  of  sand  and 
small  pebbles.  No  man  traveling  over  the  same  ground  to- 
day can  see  a  vestige  of  a  sign  of  Mount  Joliet. 

The  Illinois  Penitentiary  is  not  far  from  there  and  Joliet  is 
a  great,  thriving  city,  noted  for  its  barbed  wire  fence  factories. 
I  have  lately  and  very  often  since  traveled  over  this  same  Rock 
Island  Railroad.  Now,  instead  of  one  train  each  way,  there 
are  upward  of  one  hundred  freight  and  passenger  trains.  In- 
stead of  one  track  there  are  two  all  the  way  and  four  part  of 
the  way.  Instead  of  only  two  engines  this  system  now  has,  I 
am  told,  three  thousand  four  hundred  and  twenty-six.  In- 
stead of  ninety  miles  of  track  this  system  now  counts  more  than 
nine  thousand  miles.  And  when  I  look  back  and  see  that  it 
is  I  and  my  compeers  and  associates  who  have  brought  about 
thfs  great  change — incomprehensible  to  but  few,  and  they  only 
who  travel  and  see  things  grow  and  change,  and  grow  and 
change  with  what  they  see — why  should  I  not  be  proud  of  the 
company  which  I  have  been  keeping  for  the  more  than  half  a 
century  ? 

My  boys  and  their  associates  and  compeers  will  have  to 
look  up  in  the  air  as  they  are  already  looking  down  in  the 
ground  by  means  of  the  tunnels  and  excavations  they  are 
making  under  the  great  cities.  Methinks  what  a  pleasure  it 
will  be  to  live  in  this  world  fifty  years  hence  if  its  improve- 
ments continue  apace  and  keep  abreast  with  those  of  the  last 
fifty  years. 

I  am  riding  in  an  elaborately  equipped  Pullman  palace  car, 
pulled  by  an  engine  capable  of  making  seventy  miles  an  hour, 
on  a  train  composed  of  fourteen  other  parlor  mansions  on 
wheels  such  as  this  one  is,  and  I  am  crossing  a  desert  in  south- 
ern Arizona  at  the  rate  of  sixty  miles  an  hour  that  I  crossed 
forty  years  ago  on  a  jaded  horse  at  the  rate  of  two  and  one- 


32  THE   SOUTH    IN    THE  EARLY   FIFTIES. 

half  miles  an  hour.  Oh,  what  a  change  and  what  a  pleas- 
ure it  is  to  me  to  realize  it  in  this  substantial  way!  Then  it 
would  have  taken  me  three  long  months  to  have  heard  from 
my  folks.  This  morning  at  six-thirty  I  started  a  message  and 
in  less  than  one  hour  I  heard  from  the  loved  ones  at  home. 

Forty  years  ago  I  first  drank  the  waters  of  the  Rio  Bravo 
Grande  del  Norte,  which  the  first  Spanish  explorers  of  this 
country  reported  to  their  ,king  as  the  greatest  river  flowing 
from  the  mountains  of  the  North  to  the  great  Gulf  of  the 
South,  and  I  remember  having  seen  an  ancient  map  illustrat- 
ing it  as  being  much  larger  than  the  Mississippi.  At  that 
time  my  lips,  parched  from  thirst,  were  quenched  at  where 
afterward  Fort  Quitman  was  placed  and  one  hundred  miles 
south  of  what  is  now  known  as  El  Paso.  This  river  was  then 
three-fourths  of  a  mile  wide  at  that  place  and  continued  that 
wide  with  but  little  variation  to  Santa  Fe  and  above.  It  fur- 
nished water  for  the  irrigation  of  millions  of  acres  of  land. 
Tomorrow  I  will  cross  it  at  El  Paso  where  it  is  confined  to  the 
limits  of  a  sluice  box  or  drain  that  would  not  relieve  an  ordi- 
nary Louisiana  swamp  of  its  overflow. 

The  water  has  been  taken  out  by  the  people  on  the  upper 
streams  and  tributaries  of  the  river  in  Colorado  and  even 
above  until  there  is  none  left  to  make  glad  the  thirsty  valleys 
where  once  grew  the  largest  grapes,  the  largest  pears,  the 
largest  crops  of  wheat  and  the  largest  onions  that  were  ever 
grown  on  earth.  Like  the  race  that  produced  them — the  Mex- 
icans— it  has  passed  away.  They  are  passing  away,  leaving 
behind  them  little  that  the  Anglo-Saxon  and  the  true  American 
shall  ever  have  occasion  to  honor  or  remember. 

We  left  La  Salle  on  the  Illinois  River,  a  stern-wheel 
steamer,  for  St.  Louis.  The  we  consisted  of  dad,  mother. 
an  older  brother,  a  younger  one,  two  younger  sisters  and  my- 
self, all  of  whom  had  a  burden  to  bear,  for  in  that  day  the 
bank  bills  of  one  State  would  not  pass  in  another — these  were 


THE   SOUTH    IN    THE   EARLY    FIFTIES.  33 

good  old  democratic  days  of  State  rights — and  we  each  had 
to  carry  our  portion  of  old  man  Blake's  California  gold,  which, 
did  I  state  the  weight  of  it,  some  would  question  and  others 
doubt,  and  thus  my  honesty  be  brought  into  question  early  in 
my  history. 

The  Illinois  River  was  then  what  it  is  now,  since  the  Chi- 
cago Drainage  canal  pours  into  it.  Lake  Michigan  waters  at 
the  rate  of  little  less  than  one  million  gallons  per  hour,  but 
not  like  it,  has  been  since  1853,  when  the  water  was  so  low  as 
to  give  good  ordinary  sized  catfish  trouble  in  navigating  it. 
I  get  it  from  a  State  Fish  Commissioner  that  in  1872  the  Ger- 
man carp  were  planted  in  the  Illinois  River  at  Peoria,  and  for 
eight  or  ten  years  nothing  was  heard  from  them,  but  that  for 
the  last  four  years  they  have  been  a  source  of  profit  aggregat- 
ing two  hundred  and  seventy-five  thousand  dollars  per  year  to 
the  fishermen.  Like  eating  grapes,  eating  carp  to  like  them  is 
an  acquired  taste,  and  I  would  advise  my  friends  not  to  try  to 
acquire  the  taste,  but  to  eat  mud  suckers  and  turtles  instead. 

We  were  four  days  and  nights  in  getting  to  St.  Louis  on 
our  stern-wheel  steamer,  which  had  stops  to  make  at  every 
bend  in  the  river  to  take  on  and  put  off  freight  and  people. 
And  such  people  and  such  freight  as  I  never  before  saw,  but  of 
which  I  have  seen  millions  since !  St.  Louis  of  those  days  was 
not  the  St.  Louis  of  today.  Then  there  was  eighteen  miles 
of  river  front,  both  sides,  against  which  there  were  tied  steam- 
boats and  floating  craft,  often  three  deep,  the  outside  one  un- 
loading over  the  other  two.  These  boats  plowed  the  waters 
of  all  the  streams,  rivers,  rivulets  and  tributaries  that  flow  into 
and  make  the  mighty,  muddy  Missouri,  and  it,  aided  by  such 
tributaries  as  the  Ohio,  making  the  mighty  Mississippi  which 
flows  on  to  the  Gulf. 

So  for  thirteen  hundred  miles  we  steamed  down  from  St. 
Louis  to  New  Orleans,  taking  thirteen  days  to  make  it  cm  a 
United  States  fast  dispatch  boat,  that,  of  course,  had  to  stop  at 


34  THE  SOUTH    IN    THE  EARLY    FIFTIES. 

every  postoffice  and  take  on  and  take  off  live  and  dead  freight 
of  all  imaginary  sorts,  including  cattle,  hogs,  horses,  mules, 
chickens,  ducks,  geese,  etc.,  while  the  boat  would  stop  for 
anything.  There  were  no  postal  cards  in  those  days,  or  I  sup- 
pose the  boats  would  have  stopped  for  them. 

The  Mississippi  River  of  those  days  was  not  the  Missis- 
sippi River  of  today.  The  commerce  that  in  those  days  floated 
on  its  broad  bosom  finds  other  ways  to  the  markets  and  to 
the  seas  than  by  being  floated  down  by  steamers  or  by  rafts 
mostly.  And  now  comes  my  time  to  tell  what  a  raft  was  and 
how  it  was  made — this  not  for  the  benefit  of  the  few  old  men 
like  myself  who  know,  but  for  the  boys.  However,  a  little 
looking  backward  will  do  no  harm. 

In  order  to  describe  this  properly  we  will  locate  ourselves 
somewhere  on  a  little  stream  emptying  into  the  Wabash  River 
in  Indiana.  We  will  say  that  there  are  fifty  of  us  farmers  who 
have  corn  and  wheat  and  oats  and  hogs  and  chickens  and 
turkeys  and  apples,  dried  and  green,  and  hoop-poles  and  pump- 
kins. We  all  get  together  and  cut  down  great  big  oak  trees 
that  will  square  three  by  three  feet,  and  we  hew  them  out  forty 
or  fifty  feet  long  and  plug  them  and  pin  them  together  on  the 
low  ground  in  the  summertime  and  fall  of  the  year,  and  when 
all  around  is  dry.  We  put  ten  or  fifteen  of  these  side  by  side 
and  then  we  put  four  or  five  or  six  upon  the  side  of  the  same 
sort  and  dimensions,  and  then  we  fill  up  the  ends.  Then  we 
commence  to  collect  our  effects — like  old  father  Noah,  only  we 
do  not  take  them  in  by  pairs — and  then  we  get  together  and 
elect  a  captain,  and  we  pick  out  the  proper  young  men  to  go 
with  him,  and  when  our  flatboat  is  well  filled  up  and  the  rains 
commence  coming  down  and  the  creeks  commence  coming 
up,  away  we  float  and  down  we  go  on  the  old  Ohio  and  at 
Cairo  we  strike  the  Mississippi,  Oh!  and  down  and  down  we 
go  with  a  little  light  in  front  and  one  in  the  rear.  Jim  at 
the  oar  four  hours  in  turn,  and  at  the  spring  flowing  season 


THE   SOUTH    IN    THE   EARLY   FIFTIES.  35 

we  are  so  thick  on  the  river  that  steamboats  have  a  bad  time 
pulling  around  us  or  pushing  through  us,  going  up  stream. 

It  is  a  long  fleet  but  a  jolly  one,  and  thje  refrains  of  the 
songs  sung  by  the  float  from  away  up  the  Ohio,  or  those  from 
the  head  waters  of  the  Missouri  or  from  the  Illinois  or  from 
the  Cumberland  and  the  thousand  other  smaller  tributaries,  is 
soon  picked  up  by  our  Wabash  Indian  crew,  and  loudly  ring 
the  songs  both  day  and  night,  which  here  commingle  as  does 
the  waters  of  the  mighty  rivers  that  make  the  mighty  stream. 
There  is  constant  badinage  day  and  night,  such  as:  "Hello, 
Brownie!"  by  reason  of  their  boats  being  painted  brown  with 
their  native  clay.  "Where  from?" 

"Yellow  Forks  of  Roaring  River  up  Rogue's  Hollow,"  or, 
"Paradise  Valley  in  the  land  of  plenty,"  or  similar  names  of  the 
localities  from  which  they  came,  never  giving  the  correct  ones. 

"What  loaded  with?" 

"Fruit  and  lumber." 

"What  sort?" 

"Hoop-poles  and  pumpkins." 

"Got  any  apple  jack?" 

"Naw,  but  if  you  have  we  will  trade  you  some  pure  'Oh 
be  joyful'  for  that  or  'Old  Flat,'  "  meaning  tobacco  which 
has  been  pressed  out  in  plugs  as  we  see  it  nowadays,  a  trading 
trick  that  the  Indian  Hoosier  was  the  first  to  get  on  to. 

Now,  understand  you  that  there  is  not  one  ounce  of  weight 
on  all  of  this  boat  or  in  it  "or  of  the  boat  itself  but  that  is  of 
great  value,  and  which  is  going  to  sell  for  a  big  price  down  in 
New  Orleans. 

When  we  went  down  in  November  of  1853  we  were  never 
out  of  sight  of  these  rifts,  and  we  were  told  that  they  were 
much  thicker. in  the  springtime  flow  when  the  waters  were 
high  in  the  up  creeks  from  the  melted  snow.  The  float  would 
be  met  at  from  fifty  to  one  hundred  miles  from  New  Orleans 
by  buyers.  The  competition  was  so  great  that  good  prices 


36  THE   SOUTH    IN    THE   EARLY   FIFTIES. 

were  always  realized,  and  there  was  an  honor  among  the 
traders  of  the  day  which  begat  confidence,  and  everything  was 
bargained  for  and  sold  before  New  Orleans  was  seen  and  a 
certain  colored  flag  was  put  up  on  the  southeast  corner  of  the 
flat  that  the  tugboat  belonging  to  the  owner,  the  man  who 
had  bought  it,  might  come  out  and  bring  it  to  the  landing, 
where  the  Indiana  boys  were  met  by  the  cashier,  who  paid 
them  in  gold  and  silver  for  their  cargo.  It  was  often  the  case 
that  the  boat  itself  was  worth  more  than  the  entire  cargo,  for 
then  as  now  there  was  great  demand  for  oak  lumber  of  all 
sorts  and  building  lumber  of  any  sort. 

New  Orleans  was  very  different  from  the  New  Orleans 
of  today.  It  required  twenty-seven  miles  of  river  front  for 
its  wharfage  and  at  many  places  the  boats  were  three  and  four 
deep.  There  was  more  business  done  then  in  the  City  of  New 
Orleans  in  one  day  than  there  is  now  being  done  in  one  month, 
or  perhaps  three  of  them,  in  the  way  of  its  being  done  by  the 
people.  I  have  seen  steamers  unloading  three  or  four  thou- 
sand bales  of  cotton,  which  all  had  to  be  drayed  to  the  com- 
press and  from  there  again  down  to  the  ocean  steamers  which 
took  it  abroad.  I  have  seen  more  doing  in  one  day  on  the 
principal  levee  in  New  Orleans  than  is  now  done  in  the  most 
active  part  in  a  week. 

Modern  New  Orleans  is  in  no  sense  what  the  New  Orleans 
of  fifty  years  ago  was.  Outside  of  the  old  French  Quarters 
and  the  French  Markets  the  changes  have  been  wonderful. 
Where  once  one  thousand  or  more  steamers  and  ten  times  the 
number  of  flatboats  could  be  seen,  now  you  may  count  them 
on  your  hands.  For  I  and  my  compeers  have  been  working 
in  this  direction,  as  well  as  in  others,  and  we  have  made  it  pos- 
sible by  improvements  and  inventions  and  the  building  of  rail- 
roads and  tramways  for  one  man  to  do  what  ten  or  thirty 
would  do  then,  And  what  has  become  of  the  nine  or 


THE   SOUTH    IN    THE  EARLY   FIFTIES.  37 

twenty-nine  we  have  been  too  busy  to  stop  to  ask.  They  may 
be  found  along  in  the  hovels  cursing  their  fate. 

For  two  hundred  miles  above  New  Orleans  on  both  sides 
of  the  Mississippi  River  there  were  sugar  plantations  after 
sugar  plantations  which  produced  from  eight  hundred  and 
seventy-five  to  fourteen  hundred  dollars  per  hand,  the  hands 
being  valued  at  from  nine  to  twelve  hundred  dollars,  though  a 
good  negro  would  bring  as  high  as  fifteen  hundred  dollars. 
From  the  top  of  our  boats  we  could  see  over  the  levees,  and 
the  sugar  mills  in  the  distance,  'and  never  were  we  out  of  sight 
of  orange,  lemon  and  banana  trees.  • 

New  Orleans  was  a  bower  of  blooming  beauties,  and  orange 
trees  and  fig  trees  and  such  like  tropical  fruits.  Today  they, 
as  well  as  the  sugar  plantations  and  the  commerce  of  the 
mighty  Mississippi,  have  all  passed  away.  The  climatic 
changes  have  been  wonderful,  but  the  political  changes  have 
been  as  great.  New  Orleans  was  the  most  metropolitan  or 
cosmopolitan  city  on  the  globe  at  this  time.  O*n  its  streets 
might  be  met  more  people  of  more  different  parts  of  the  globe, 
with  different  callings,  trades,  professions,  avocations  and 
labors,  than  in  any  other  commercial  city,  we  are  told,  on  earth. 
It  was  here,  on  the  Mississippi  River,  that  the  commercial 
gambler  and  the  high  roller  lived,  prospered  and  died,  for  he 
is  not  there  now. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  highest  stakes  at  cards  that  have 
ever  been  played  were  played  here  in  New  Orleans  and  on  the 
Mississippi  steamers.  The  average  planter  and  his  son  were 
natural  born  gamblers  as  well  as  thoroughly  educated,  refined, 
polished,  cultured  gentlemen,  who  would  ingratiate  themselves 
in  any  good  society. 

When  I  was  a  young  man,  soon  after  my  first  seeing  New 
Orleans,  I  had  formed  the  acquaintance,  in  the  ur>country  in 
Texas,  of  a  gentleman  calling  himself  Col.  Young,  whom  I 
took  to  be  a  New  Orleans  merchant  or  a  Louisiana  sugar 


3&  THE  SOUTH    IN    THE  EARLY   FIFTIES. 

planter,  by  the  manner  in  which  he  threw  himself  around, 
loose-like.  He  invited  me  very  cordially  when  I  came  to  New 
Orleans  to  call  and  see  him,  and  gave  me  his  card,  that  he 
might  be  of  some  assistance  to  me.  About  the  first  thing  I  did 
was  to  hunt  him  up.  I  found  his  number.  I  saw  several  gen- 
tlemen going  in,  none  coming  out,  so  I  followed  through  a 
spring  trap-like  door,  entering  an  entry,  and  looking  before 
me  on  the  wall  I  saw  in  large  six-inch  letters : 

"THE  HOOKING  COOKING  SOCIETY." 

"Eat,  Drink  and  Pay  Nothing, 
Walk  out  and  Say  Nothing." 

I  went  through  another  trap  door  and  entered  a  great  din- 
ing-room and  a  negro  came  up  to  me  and  said : 

"Massa,  what'll  you  have  to  eat  ?  We  have  baked  opossum 
and  we  have  turkey." 

And  he  named  all  the  costly  foods  of  the  day.  I  took  my 
piece  of  turkey  in  order  to  be  in  keeping  with  others  whom  I 
was  taking  as  guides,  and  after  drinking  a  cup  of  coffee  Sambo 
came  up  and  said : 

"Now,  Massa,  will  you  join  the  gentlemen  in  de  room?" 

The  room  in  which  I  "joined  the  gentlemen"  was  fully 
sixty  feet  square  if  not  larger.  There  were  as  many  faro 
tables  in  there  as  could  be  placed,  each  seating  about  nine  or 
eleven  people.  It  was  not  exactly  my  first  appearance  in  a 
gambling-room,  so  I  sauntered  around  awhile  but  made  no 
inquiries  for  Col.  Young,  who  I  now  found  was  a  gambler's 
drummer  who  traveled  around  as  any  other  solicitor  might, 
hunting  for  suckers. 

I  found  one  stack  of  fifty-dollar  gold  pieces  and  it  had  in 
it  five  thousand  dollars,  and  there  were  ten  stacks  of  tKem  on 
that  table.  There  were  twenty-two  stacks  of  double  eagles, 
twenty-dollar  gold  pieces,  and  there  were  forty  stacks  of  ten- 


THE   SOUTH    IN    THE   EARLY    FIFTIES.  39 

dollar  pieces.  I  saw  no  stacks  of  any  less  amount  in  gold 
and  there  were  but  two  tables  in  the  house  that  had  any  silver 
at  all  on  them.  I  was  told  that  it  would  infrequently  be  the 
case  that  fifty  thousand  dollars  were  stacked  up  on  the  turn 
of  a  card.  I  saw  more  grey-bearded  men  there  than  I  did 
young  men.  There  is  no  such  sight  as  this  to  be  seen  in  that 
city  now ;  yet  that  there  is  any  amount  of  gambling  going  on 
there  now  there  can  be  no  question. 

Many  years  ago,  about  1851  or  '52,  if  I  have  been  cor- 
rectly informed,  by  voting  all  the  boatmen  and  the  lumbermen 
and  raftmen  and  other  sort  of  men  that  could  be  carried  to 
the  polls  in  the  city  of  New  Orleans,  it  was  voted  to  widen 
Canal  Street  and  to  place  in  what  was  then  about  the  center 
of  it  a  monument  of  Henry  Clay.  The  French  population, 
like  all  of  their  race,  and  the  Spaniards,  in  America  as  well 
as  in  their  own  country,  were  bitterly  opposed  to  all  improve- 
ment, and  especially  to  the  widening  of  the  street  and  the 
building  of  a  monument  to  the  great  American  statesman. 

I  was  told  that  the  erection  of  a  monument  to  Andrew 
Jackson  years  before  the  above  occurrence  cost  many  lives  in 
a  riot  raised  by  the  French  Creole  people.  I  have  been  pointed 
out  Frenchmen  who  have  always  lived  on  the  French  side  of 
Canal  Street,  who  have  never  crossed  it  and  who  would  have 
disowned  their  children  had  they  gone  across  it.  And  such  :s 
the  case  today.  I  think  it  is  a  good  thing  for  the  other  part 
of  the  city  that  there  is  something  to  keep  them  from  dis- 
gracing it  by  their  presence.  And  so  will  all  say  who  have 
visited  the  French  Quarters  of  New  Orleans,  which  are  iden- 
tical with  those  of  the  same  class  in  Quebec,  Canada.  They 
live  in  poverty,  squalor  and  want  in  houses  made  of  brick 
mostly,  filled  and  covered  with  filth,  such  as  can  be  found  in  no 
other  American  city,  not  even  Chinatown  of  San  Francisco. 

You  must  not  use  the  word  "cagin"  implying  thereby  that 
there  is  any  nigger  blood  in  the  party. to  whom  you  are  talk- 


4O  THE  SOUTH    IN   THE  EARLY   FIFTIES. 

ing,  any  more  than  you  must  not  speak  in  any  way  disrespect- 
fully of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  unless  you  want  to  fill  an 
unmarked  grave  by  the  stilletto  route.  Nor  must  you  under- 
take to  explore  that  part  of  either  of  these 'cities,  no  more  than 
you  would  the  pagan  Chinese  quarters  of  San  Francisco  with- 
out a  licensed  guide. 

Over  in  this  section  there  were  three  long  streets  given 
up  to  the  social  evil,  and  on  which  are  many  of  the  finest  resi- 
dences in  the  city.  Who  visits  that  section  of  the  city  takes 
his  life  in  his  own  hands,  and  mind  you,  it  is  not  a  painted  saint 
who  is  telling  you  this,  but  an  up-to-date  all-around  one,  who 
has  in  his  day  seen  all  that  there  was  in  this  world  to  see  and 
feared  nothing  because  he  depended  upon  no  one  but  himself, 
and  who  "always  went  heeled"  and  who  kept  his  eyes  and  his 
ears  opened  and  never  poisoned  his  senses  by  liquors  or  other 
intoxicants.  Do  you  know,  my  friend,  that  there  are  worse 
intoxicants  than  liquor  in  this  world?  And  that  there  is  not 
a  grog-seller  on  earth  but  that  could  if  he  would  drug  you  with- 
out giving  you  liquor? 

In  those  days  the  average  Southern  society  man  was  a  great 
clown,  a  buffoon  and  a  sycophant,  very  much  as  he  is  today. 
He  was  a  plaything  for  the  Southern  lady,  who  was  above  her 
brother  in  every  sense  of  the  word,  in  beauty,  in  character,  in 
good  sense,  sound  judgment,  honesty  and  true  nobleness.  The 
"lost  cause"  would  not  have  been  so  reported  to  the  world 
around  had  it  been  for  the  women  of  the  South  instead  of  the 
men.  In  these  days  of  which  I  write  it  was  the  proper  thing 
for  the  Northern  man  to  be  good  looking,  have  good  manners 
and  a  strong  character,  coupled  with  a  natural  bravery  and 
brains,  and  to  take  up  a  school  at  so  much  per  head  per  month. 
And  he  could  just  have  his  pick  out  of  the  flock  of  lambs 
around  him.  The  most  amiable  ones  were  also  the  most 
wealthy  planters'  daughters.  He  soon  became  a  planter  in  good 
shape,  and  no  matter  what  his  former  ideas  on  the  subject  of 


THE  SOUTH   IN   THE  EARLY   FIFTIES.  4! 

slavery  might  have  been,  he  also  became  a  pro-slavery  man 
and  an  uncompromising  secessionist  and  "hooped  it  up"  on 
that  line  extensively,  but  never  went  to  the  war  except  in  the 
band  wagon,  quartermaster's  department  or  in  some  branch  of 
the  service  which  had  no  fears  of  the  battle-field.  We  will 
come  along  over  these  questions  of  battle-fields  later  on. 

From  New  Orleans  we  went  to  Galveston,  which  was  then 
a  city  of  no  small  importance,  but  which  never  will  be  more 
than  what  she  was  when  it  was  said  that  the  great  pirate  buc- 
caneer La  Fitte  made  it  his  headquarters.  But  for  its  storms, 
tornadoes  and  the  plague  visitations  it  might  become  a  greater 
city  than  only  that  of  a  switching  station  and  a  transfer  depot 
for  the  Southern  Pacific  Railroad.  It  surely  is  a  delightful 
city  to  visit  in  the  winter  season.  It  has  the  finest  beach,  next 
to  Atlantic  City,  on  the  face  of  the  globe.  It  is  a  first-class 
place  to  keep  away  from  unless  you  have  lots  of  money,  and 
if  you  have  that  and  have  not  first-class  sense  you  will  not  be 
able  to  get  away  from  there  with  it  although  you  had  it  when 
you  came.  In  fact,  coming  right  down  to  the  plain,  honest, 
old-fashioned,  unequivocal  truth,  this  applies  to  all  of  the  big 
State  of  Texas,  where  in  the  last  fifty  years  more  good  people 
have  gone  with  their  money  to  afterward  go  back  to  their 
wife's  folks  in  poverty  or  still  live  there  in  want. 

Fifty  years  ago  and  previous  to  that  time  and  date,  back 
possibly  several  hundred  years,  Texas  was  a  great  country. 
And  it  may  be  a  great  country  again,  but  it  has  not  been  in 
my  estimation  in  my  day,  and  I  know  many  great 
and  noble  people  who  have  the  same  opinion  of  the  country 
and  climate. 

We  settled  at  Seguin,  which  was,  fifty  years  ago,  a  beauti- 
ful place  surrounded  by  a  beautiful  country.  It  would  be  a 
foolish  waste  of  time  and  money  to  put  in  cold  type  and  print 
incidents  connected  with  our  family  and  my  own  history  at 


42  THE  SOUTH   IN    THE  EARLY   FIFTIES. 

this  place,  so  we  will  cut  across  lots  and  get  out  of  the  woods 
as  quickly  as  possible. 

The  year  1854  was  a  very  fruitful  one.  In  1855  tne 
drought  commenced,  and  for  thirteen  months  we  had  no  dews 
or  pentecostal  showers.  The  earth  dried  up  and  the  grass 
dried  up.  The  prairies  were  cracked  in  many  places  a  foot 
wide  and  thirty  or  forty  feet  down.  Stock  died  by  the  millions 
between  the  Colorado  and  the  Rio  Grande  and  the  people 
moved  out,  and  they  who  went  never  came  back.  There  was 
more  wealth  in  the  Guadalupe  country  fifty  years  ago  twice 
over  than  there  is  now  or  ever  may  be  again,  counting  negroes 
at  New  Orleans'  slave  pen  prices.  It  is  not  in  my  power  to 
so  tell  it  as  to  be  interesting  to  any  great  number  of  people, 
but  I  know  that,  should  I  tell  the  truth,  those  living  in  that 
section  who  may  read  these  lines  would  become  angry,  for  it 
has  been  my  observation,  which  also  conforms  to1  the  observa- 
tion of  many  wise  men  who  have  gone  before  me,  that  the  more 
poor  the  country  the  more  loyal  are  its  people. 

Take  a  city  in  the  prosperous  State  of  Iowa  or  Kansas, 
where  the  per  capita  bank  account  of  each  individual  citizen 
is  twice  over  greater  than  that  of  any  other  country  on  the  face 
of  the  globe,  and  he  takes  no  exception  to  what  you  might  say 
against  his  country,  while  the  citizen  of  Texas  or  Georgia,  who 
never  had  a  bank  account  and  who  never  possibly  had 
a  dollar  ahead,  will  bristle  up  for  a  fight  the  moment  he  hears 
you  say  anything  against  the  country  in  which  he  lives,  I 
find  this  to  be  the  same  with  the  poor,  ignorant,  down-trodden 
Mexicans  and  Cubans ;  the  latter,  however,  has  a  country  which 
has  no  equal  on  the  face  of  the  globe  in  point  of  productiveness, 
while  the  former  has  nothing  that  man  respects  or  values. 

The  changes  which  have  come  over  southwestern  Texas  in 
the  last  fifty  years  is  another  one  of  these  "incomprehensibili- 
ties" to  even  the  native,  must  less  the  man  who  has  lived  in 
the  country  for  that  length  of  time  and  has  seen  more  wonder- 


THE  SOUTH    IN    THE  EARLY    FIFTIES.  43 

ful  changes  in  its  climate,  productions  and  people.  To  illus- 
trate: In  1855  in  two  days'  ride  southwest  from  San  Antonio 
I  saw  in  droves  of  forty  and  fifty  each,  possibly  as  many  as 
one  hundred  thousand,  mustang  ponies  and  as  many  more  deer 
and  fully  as  many  long-horned  Texas  steers.  Who  has  seen 
anything  of  this-  sort  since?  I  saw  from  the  range  of  moun- 
tains first  west  of  the  Rio  Grande  River,  across  a  valley  rang- 
ing from  seventy-five  to  two  hundred  miles  wide  and  three 
hundred  miles  long,  in  the  middle  of  which  now  runs  the  Mex- 
ican Central  Railroad,  more  deer  and  antelope  and  cattle  at  one 
sight  than  it  would  be  prudent  for  me  to  number,  but  I  be- 
lieve greater  in  number  than  all  of  the  cattle  in  all  the  middle 
Western  States.  Today  this  valley  is  a  barren  desert,  except 
ing  in  little  spots  hither  and  yon,  like  oases  in  a  desert,  around 
and  on  which  may  be  seen  a  few  cattle,  but  no  game  of  any 
sort  here  or  in  the  mountains. 

In  1853  and  '54  the  ore  from  all  the  mines  of  North  Mex- 
ico was  hauled  to1  San  Antonio,  much  of  it  on  Mexican  wooden- 
wheeled  carts,  where  it  was  taken  by  American  Texas  team- 
sters to  Port  Lavaca  and  thence  to  England  for  refinement. 
None  comes  that  way  now,  and  when  I  drive  through  the 
streets  of  this  old  city  and  think  of  what  has  occurred  in  the 
way  of  changes  in  my  own  recollection  and  time  I  can  but 
wonder  if  the  future  has  as  great  possibilities  in  it  in  the  way 
\>f  changes  for  good  as  the  past  has  for  bad.  If  it  has,  this  will 
be  a  veritable  paradise. 

The  springs  from  whence  flows  the  San  Antonio  River,  a 
few  miles  north  of  the  city,  have  all  but  dried  up,  and  the  flow- 
ing artesian  wells  furnish  this  element,  which  in  turn  may  cease 
to  flow.  The  old  Missions  at  this  place  have  no  history  of 
such  droughts  having  ever  occurred  as  have  since  1854,  and  it 
may  be,  and  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  such  will  be,  that  the  old, 
old  time  conditions  of  nature  will  reappear — I  mean  in  the  way 
of  flowing  springs,  rivers,  rivulets  and  brooks — and,  if  it 


44  THE  SOUTH   IN   THE  EARLY   FIFTIES. 

does,  then  this  will  be  a  delightful  country  again  as  it  was  be- 
fore. The  possibility  of  this  being  the  condition  is  too  great 
for  me  to  advise  any  one  to  go  there  and  wait  for  its  coming, 
and  in  the  meantime  take  what  is  there  and  has  been  for  the 
past  many  years. 

There  is  a  disappointment  in  store  for  my  readers  if  he 
expects  that  I  am  going  to  tell  of  the  different  graveyards  that 
I  have  started  in  Texas  in  my  day,  or  that  I  even  started  one, 
or  of  the  different  Indian  fights  that  I  have  been  in  and  the 
number  of  Indians  that  I  have  killed.  It  was  as  much  as  I 
could  do  to  keep  from  having  one  started  by  being  planted 
myself,  and  when  I  was  in  the  Indian  country  it  kept  me  very 
busy  keeping  out  of  sight  of  any  living  Indians.  They  would 
be  doing  the  killing  act,  and  I  would  be  in  the  other  end  of  the 
game.  I  will  illustrate  my  condition  by  giving  a  statement 
which  I  know  to  be  true : 

A  Col.  W and  a  Gen.  G ,  who  were  high  rollers  in 

their  way  concluded  to  run  for  Congress  in  their  district. 
They  both  had  started  graveyards  in  their  day,  and  it  was 
well  known  by  all  the  people.  There  was  also  a  noted  individ- 
ual, known  all  over  Texas  as  "Three-Legged  Willie,"  who  had 
had  a  foot  shot  off  and  a  wooden  stick  put  on  at  the  knee,  and 
thus  acquired  the  sobriquet.  His  proper  name  was  Judge 
Williamson.  He  was  a  great  jurist  and  was  eminently  suc- 
cessful as  a  criminal  lawyer,  a  wag  and  a  joker,  and  when 
filled  up  with  sufficient  barley-corn  to  get  up  steam  on  or  with 
he  was  a  holy  terror,  but  not  dangerous  unless  some  one  made 
him  believe  that  he  was  in  a  dangerous  condition.  "Three- 
Legged  Willie"  was  what  Sheridan  Knowles  would  term  "in 
peace  a  lamb,  in  war  a  lamb-er." 

Willie  concluded  to  run  for  Congress  against  the  Colonel 
and  the  General,  and  it  was  decided  upon  that  there  should 
be  given  a  great  barbecue,  where  the  goat,  and  likewise  the 
calf,  the  lambs,  the  pig,  the  roasting  ear  and  corn  pome  should 


THE  SOUTH    IN   THE  EARLY   FIFTIES.  45 

be  brought  together,  and  all  the  good  people  of  the  district,  in- 
cluding mothers  and  daughters  and  sons  and  small  children 
and  the  maid-servant  and  the  man-servant,  should  congregate 
and  after  eating  all  of  these  good  barbecued  meats,  roasting 
ears  and  corn  pomes,  and  drinking  just  as  much  good  whisky 
as  every  man  pleased,  then  at  the  sound  of  a  horn  they  would 
congregate  and  listen  to  the  candidates  orate. 

The  Colonel  referred  to  the  number  of  men  the  General 
had  killed,  never  once  intimating  that  he  was  a  bad  man  there- 
for. When  the  General's  time  came  to  speak  he  referred  in 
a  very  touching  way  as  to  the  number  of  men  the  Colonel  had 
killed.  And  thus  the  people  were  re-enlightened,  and  some 
of  the  widows,  no  doubt,  had  an  opportunity  to  do  the  mourn- 
ing act  over  again.  It  was  getting  late  and  along  toward  even- 
ing, for  it  seemed  to  have  been  understood  between  the  Colonel 
and  the  General  that  they  should  talk  "Three-Legged  Willie" 
out  of  time  or  leave  him  no  time  in  which  to  tell  of  what  he 
might  have  to  say.  Finally  he  gained  the  platform  and  said 
in  substance — for  neither  Colonel,  General  or  living  mortal 
could  sling  such  words  to  convey  an  idea  or  give  a  decision  as 
Judge  Williamson  could : 

"Gentlemen  and  Ladies :  You  have  heard  these  two  gen- 
tlemen tell  you  about  the  graveyards  that  they  have  started  in 
their  day.  Now  I  want  you  to  remember  and  understand  that 
I  have  as  many  to  my  credit  and  a  few  over !" 

And  he  sat  down.  The  people  commenced  yelling,  and  it 
is  said  that  there  was  only  one  vote  recorded  against  Judge  Wil- 
liamson in  the  district.  This  story  may  not  have  a  point  or 
moral  to  many  of  my  readers,  but  it  will  be  plain  to  all  who 
understand  me  aright. 

Speaking  of  droughts  in  Texas  reminds  me  of  an  occur- 
rence of  which  I  know  well.  In  the  country  of  the  Wacos  the 
drought  had  been  long  and  continued  and  the  ground  around 
was  parched  and  dry.  The  Brazos  River  was  dry  and  there 


46  THE  SOUTH   IN    THE  EARLY   FIFTIES. 

was  a  pool  of  water  in  the  Tewa  Kana  Hills  north  of  Waco 
and  another  at  Robinsonville,  a  few  miles  south.  It  was  de- 
cided that  all  of  the  people,  regardless  of  creed,  should  con- 
gregate at  the  Robinsonville  pool  and  there  petition  Divine 
power  for  rain,  in  a  proper  and  befitting  manner.  They  came 
from  long  distances  and  in  great  numbers  and  it  was  said  that 
no  one  was  left  at  home  because  there  was  nothing  left  at  home 
living  that  required  attention.  On  the  meeting  ground  there 
was  no  dissention;  all  was  humiliation  and  contrition,  even 
unto  sackcloth  and  ashes.  Prayers  were  started  by  first  one 
and  then  another,  and  they  were  long  and  zealous  and  fervent 
and  had  been  presented  for  many  days,  and  yet  the  hot  sun 
poured  down  on  a  famishing  people  its  scorching  rays  and  no 
relief  seemed  to  develop  in  the  way  of  clouds. 

It  seemed  that  one  or  two  parties  had  taken  control  of  mat- 
ters and  wrote  the  names  of  the  prayer-makers  on  the  bulletin 
board  early  in  the  morning.  There  was  among  the  congrega- 
tion an  old-school  Hard-shell  Baptist  preacher;  a  man  well 
along  in  years  and  of  powerful  physique  and  a  voice  that  might 
have  been  equaled  but  surely  not  surpassed.  He  was  a  man  of 
indomitable  will  power.  He  was  a  man  of  considerable  wealth, 
owned  several  negroes  on  a  fine  plantation,  and  was  the  father 

of  a  very  large  family  at  home.     Brother  C was  out  of 

whack  with  the  people  for  and  by  reason  of  what  Brick  Pome- 
roy  termed  "clerical  indiscretions."  He  had  not  been  called 
upon  to  pray  and  could  no  longer  stand  the  strain.  He  pro- 
cured a  chunk  of  chalk — he  was  a  good  writer — rubbed  out 
what  was  on  the  blackboard  and  wrote  on  it : 

"This  is  Brother  C 's  day  to  pray." 

At  which  all  of  the  camp  took  a  squint,  and  tongues  began 
to  wag  and  some  were  against  going  under  the  arbor,  but 
finally  better  judgment  prevailed  and  soon  after  the  old  horn 
sounded  the  seats  were  filled  and  the  ground  was  all  covered 
Brother  C commenced. 


THE   SOUTH    IN    THE  EARLY    FIFTIES.  47 

(I  have  always  wished  that  I  could  tell  such  as  this  and 
use  the  party's  actual  words,  but  I  cannot  and  I  do  not  be- 
lieve a  man  ever  lived  who  could  have  used  Brother  C 's 

words  at  this  time.  I  propose  to  only  give  a  synopsis.) 

"Almighty  God,  Thou  knowest  the  wants  of  us,  Thy  men- 
servants  and  Thy  maid-servants,  and  we  need  not  be  telling 
you.  We  have  come  on  this  ground  to  show  Thee  our  pen- 
itence and  how  badly  whipped  we  feel  and  how  willing  we  are 
to  thank  Thee  for  past  blessings  and  prepare  ourselves  to  thank 
Thee  for  the  blessings  Thou  art  going  to  give  us  in  the  fu- 
ture. Now,  Almighty  God,  Thou  knowest  how  we  are  suffer- 
ing down  here,  and  we  want  you  to  come  to  our  relief.  We 
want  you  to  come  with  no  little  sprinkle  or  Pentecostal  shower, 
but,  O'h  God  in  heaven,  send  down  upon  us  an  old-time,  old- 
fashioned  gully-washer  and  root-soaker,  and  be  quick  about 
it.  Amen." 

And  so  said  all  the  people  who  arose  and  beheld  in  the 
northwest  a  black  cloud  which  rose  higher  and  higher  and 
in  a  few  hours  the  rain  that  was  falling  was  something  terri- 
ble to  behold  and  in  a  very  short  time  not  only  the  cracks  of 
the  earth  were  filled,  the  ravines  and  the  gullies  were  washed 
out  and  the  Brazos  came  rushing  down  overflowing  its  banks 
and  there  was  water  in  all  the  land.  There  was  great  rejoic- 
ing and  the  rain  continued  and  continued,  and  it  was  suggested 
that  Brother  C be  importuned  to  have  another  "heart-to- 
heart  talk"  with  Deity  lest  a  second  flood  come. 


SECESSION  AND  ITS  VICTIMS. 


My  friends  who  are  really  responsible  for  this  book,  who 
drove  me  to  writing  it,  should  bear  with  me  in  its  many  imper- 
fections, but  as  I  know  very  well  from  past  experiences  they 
will  not,  I  am  preparing  to  take  it  all  on  my  own  shoulders, 
and,  like  the  man  who  once  thought  he  could  insult  me — he 
was  drunk,  and  a  drunken  man  cannot  insult  me — and  who 
was  making  considerable  noise  in  a  berth  opposite  me  in  a 
sleeper  and  keeping  me  awake,  upon  my  remonstrating  said: 

"If  you  don't  like  my  bacon  you  need  not  come  to  my 
smokehouse  any  more." 

At  the  age  of  about  fourteen  I  concluded  to  go  into  busi- 
ness for  myself  and  in  another  section  of  the  State,  for  which 
the  old  man  seemed  to  be  glad,  for  I  had  been  a  sore  spot  to  him 
for  many  years  because  of  my  general  independence  and  the 
peculiar  way  I  had  of  cropping  to  myself.  I  know  that  he  was 
delighted,  because  he  gave  me  five  dollars  and  a  very  fair  rid- 
ing animal  to  go  on.  An  older  brother,  who  was  about  twen- 
ty-two, went  with  me,  and  he  got  no  more  than  I  did.  We 
landed  up  with  a  contract  to  cut  railroad  ties  down  on  Green's 
Bayou  on  the  coast  of  souteastern  Texas.  'We  could  cut  and 
hew  ties,  but  when  it  came  to  doing  it  for  six  and  one-fourth 
cents  apiece  and  then  giving  three  cents  to  have  them  landed 
where  we  could  get  our  pay,  and  when  the  thermometer  would 
stand  at  about  one  hundred  and  twenty  in  the  woods,  or  j-ather 
in  the  swamps,  and  when  it  came  to  fighting  mosquitoes  both 
day  and  night,  we  resolved  to  jump  the  job.  It  was  like  the 
man  who  joined  the  Methodist  Church  on  six  months'  proba- 
tion and  declared  that  he  had  done  so well  that  they  let 

him  out  in  less  than  one  week. 

48 


SECESSION   AND   ITS   VICTIMS.  49 

We  sold  our  axes  and  camp  outfit  for  less  than  one-half  we 
had  paid  for  them  a  few  days  before  and  headed  our  horses  to 
a  higher  land  in  quest  oi  a  job  that  would  pay  better  and  be 
more  lasting.  We  ran  up  against  it  in  the  Brazos  River  town 
where  there  was  a  man  who  had  a  contract  to  furnish  a  large 
number  of  bricks  to  a  builder,  who  in  turn  had  a  contract  with 
a  rich  planter  to  have  the  building  completed  against  a  cer- 
tain time,  and  we  struck  a  job  burning  brick,  and  then  we 
struck  a  still  better  one  putting  them  into  a  chimney,  and  when 
we  were  paid  off  we  were  small-sized  capitalists. 

We  elected  to  buy  a  bookstore  and  newstands  which  one 
ran  while  the  other  went  out  selling  to  the  people  and  drum- 
ming up  customers.  The  climate  was  too  much,  for  him,  and 
my  brother  sickened  and  died,  and  was  buried  before  I  could 
get  back  from  where  I  was.  In  fact  he  was  buried  before  I 
heard  of  his  sickness.  This  brought  on  me,  or  brought  to  me 
a  great  change,  for  I  had  placed  great  confidence  in  his  judg- 
ment and  his  ability.  We  had  never  been  separated  and  no 
ordinary  tie  bound  us  together.  I  launched  out  into  other 
enterprises,  leaving  a  boy  to  attend  to  the  store  while  I  went 
after  bigger  game.  I  quit  the  business  when  the  railroad  quit 
the  town,  and  became,  so  to  say,  a  "floater."  I  had  made 
money  and  had  acquired  a  reputation. 

About  this  time  the  question  of  secession  became  so  rife 
that  every  county  in  the  State  of  Texas  had  a  Committee  of 
Public  Safety,  and  in  my  town  that  Committee  was  composed 
of  the  twelve  meanest  men  I  had  ever  had  any  contact  with 
in  my  life  until  they  contacted  with  me.  And  now  for  an  ac- 
count of  my  where-with-in. 

I  took  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  copies  of  Harper's 
Magazine  every  month.  This  Committee  of  Public  Safety 
took  every  copy  of  the  magazine  for  the  month  of  September, 
1860,  which  contained  a  letter  on  ''Squatter  Sovereignty"  by 
the  "Little  Giant,"  Senator  Stephen  Douglas  of  Illinois,  and 


5O  SECESSION    AND    ITS   VICTIMS. 

burned  them  before  my  store  door,  attracting  a  great  crowd, 
a  howling  rabble.  A  few  days  thereafter  I  received  twenty- 
four  copies  of  Dabney's  Southern  Botany,  which  had  been 
ordered  by  the  professor  of  the  academy  in  that  place  for  a  bot- 
any class  he  was  starting.  They  took  those  costly  volumes 
and  burned  them  up  in  front  of  my  door  and  then  came  in  a 
body  into  my  store  and  informed  me  in  language  more  em- 
phatic, impressive  and  profane  than  eloquent  and  genteel,  that 
if  I  got  any  more  of  those  abolition  books  and  magazines 
they  would  fix  me  as  Fike  had  been  fixed.  (Fike  was  a  mur- 
derer who  had  been  hung  that  spring. )  And  they  showed  me 
a  piece  of  rope  which  they  said  had  been  cut  for  my  benefit. 

I  tried  to  plead  my  case  by  stating  the  truth,  but  they  said 
that  the  New  York  Day  Book,  which  was  taken  by  everybody 
in  the  South  and  sworn  to  by  all,  was  all  that  was  necessary. 
But,  of  course,  it  was  a  Yankee  Democratic  secessionist  sheet 
which  was  out-Heroding  Herod.  I  sold  out  my  store  at  about 
twenty-five  per  cent,  below  cost  and  I  left  that  part  of  the  Lone 
Star  State,  and  had  I  left  the  State  entirely  both  I  and  the 
world  would  have  been  better  off,  but  family  ties  kept  me  there. 

It  was  this  same  Committee  otf  Public  Safety  who  arrested 
two  men,  who  were  delivering  Monk's  Map  of  North  America 
to  subscribers  I  had  procured  in  the  adjoining  country,  named 
Hughes  and  Parker.  They  had  two  fine,  large  mules  and  a 
good  ambulance  which  had  cost  them  eight  hundred  dollars 
in  Houston  only  a  few  days  previous.  They  had  near  four 
hundred  dollars  in  cash.  There  was  nothing  which  could  be 
found  against  the  men.  One  was  from  Missouri  and  the  other 
from  Illinois.  The  mules  and  the  ambulance  were  confiscated 
for  the  benefit  of  the  public — the  thieving  Committee  in  parr 
ticular — and  Parker  and  Hughes  were  taken  to  Galveston  and 
put  on  a  small  brig  which  happened  to  be  sailing  from  there 
to  Baltimore.  When  they  arrived  North  the  papers  were  full 
of  it,  and  many  live  today  who  remember  the  circumstances. 


SECESSION    AND   ITS   VICTIMS.  51 

Had  I  been  in  the  town  at  the  time  I  have  no  doubt  but  that 
I  would  have  been  hung,  and  possibly  all  three  of  us.  The 
whole  town  got  drunk  on  the  ready  cash. 

It  was  thirty  years  after  this  that  I  went  through  that  town. 
There  was  not  a  member  of  this  Committee  but  who  died  a 
disgraceful  death.  Not  one  of  them  was  ever  in  the  Confed- 
erate army.  They  were  all,  without  exception,  brutal,  bar- 
barous, sneaking  cowards.  The  world  knows  who  Stephen  A. 
Douglas  was,  but  not  a  soul  who  lives  can  say  the  Harper's 
Magazine  containing  his  article  should  have  been  burned  by 
any  class  of  people.  Dabney,  the  author  of  the  Southern  Bot- 
any, was  at  that  time  Professor  of  the  largest  educational  in- 
stitution in  Alabama.  He  was  born  of  royal  blue  blood.  F. 
F.  V.  stock,  and  he  was  the  Chief  of  Staff  of  the  world-re- 
nowned and  Confederate  worshiped  General  Stonewall  Jack- 
son. He  was  the  author  of  the  Life  of  Stonewall  Jackson, 
a  book  of  which  no  man  ever  read  but  to  have  been  made  the 
better  thereby  and  therefrom.  He  died  in  Victoria,  Texas,  a 
few  years  ago,  not  only  honored  and  loved,  but  respected  and 
revered  by  every  man,  woman  and  child  who  had  ever  come 
in  contact  with  him. 

From  having  done  unto  all  as  I  would  all  should  do  to  me 
T  thought  I  had  friends  in  this  city  of  Richmond,  Texas,  but 
when  the  Committee  of  Public  Safety  talked  as  they  did  to 
me  I  thought  it  was  time  to  quit,  and  never  since  have  I  ever 
calculated  upon  having  any  friends  anywhere  excepting  the 
material  out  of  which  they  are  made — from  bulk — and  were 
duly  run  through  the  United  States  mint.  And  if  I  had  one 
impression  which  I  could  burn  on  the  tablet  of  the  heart  of 
every  young  man  on  earth  today  it  would  be  this : 

"Have  compassion.  Depend  only  upon  what  you  have  to 
carry  you  through,  and  not  on  the  promises  of  anybody.  Keep 
your  money,  and  it  will  keep  you  from  all  harm.  It  will  make 
you  brave  and  it  will  make  you  honest  and  it  will  make  you  a 


5O  SECESSION    AND    ITS    VICTIMS. 

burned  them  before  my  store  door,  attracting  a  great  crowd, 
a  howling  rabble.  A  few  days  thereafter  I  received  twenty- 
four  copies  of  Dabney's  Southern  Botany,  which  had  been 
ordered  by  the  professor  of  the  academy  in  that  place  for  a  bot- 
any class  he  was  starting.  They  took  those  costly  volumes 
and  burned  them  up  in  front  of  my  door  and  then  came  in  a 
body  into  my  store  and  informed  me  in  language  more  em- 
phatic, impressive  and  profane  than  eloquent  and  genteel,  that 
if  I  got  any  more  of  those  abolition  books  and  magazines 
they  would  fix  me  as  Fike  had  been  fixed.  (Fike  was  a  mur- 
derer who  had  been  hung  that  spring. )  And  they  showed  me 
a  piece  of  rope  which  they  said  had  been  cut  for  my  benefit. 

I  tried  to  plead  my  case  by  stating  the  truth,  but  they  said 
that  the  New  York  Day  Book,  which  was  taken  by  everybody 
in  the  South  and  sworn  to  by  all,  was  all  that  was  necessary. 
But,  of  course,  it  was  a  Yankee  Democratic  secessionist  sheet 
which  was  out-Heroding  Herod.  I  sold  out  my  store  at  about 
twenty-five  per  cent,  below  cost  and  I  left  that  part  of  the  Lone 
Star  State,  and  had  I  left  the  State  entirely  both  I  and  the 
world  would  have  been  better  off,  but  family  ties  kept  me  thet  e. 

It  was  this  same  Committee  of  Public  Safety  who  arrested 
two  men,  who  were  delivering  Monk's  Map  of  North  America 
to  subscribers  I  had  procured  in  the  adjoining  country,  named 
Hughes  and  Parker.  They  had  two  fine,  large  mules  and  a 
good  ambulance  which  had  cost  them  eight  hundred  dollars 
in  Houston  only  a  few  days  previous.  They  had  near  four 
hundred  dollars  in  cash.  There  was  nothing  which  could  be 
found  against  the  men.  One  was  from  Missouri  and  the  other 
from  Illinois.  The  mules  and  the  ambulance  were  confiscated 
for  the  benefit  of  the  public — the  thieving  Committee  in  parr 
ticular — and  Parker  and  Hughes  were  taken  to  Galveston  and 
put  on  a  small  brig  which  happened  to  be  sailing  from  there 
to  Baltimore.  When  they  arrived  North  the  papers  were  full 
of  it,  and  many  live  today  who  remember  the  circumstances. 


SECESSION    AND   ITS   VICTIMS.  51 

Had  I  been  in  the  town  at  the  time  I  have  no  doubt  but  that 
I  would  have  been  hung,  and  possibly  all  three  of  us.  The 
whole  town  got  drunk  on  the  ready  cash. 

It  was  thirty  years  after  this  that  I  went  through  that  town. 
There  was  not  a  member  of  this  Committee  but  who  died  a 
disgraceful  death.  Not  one  of  them  was  ever  in  the  Confed- 
erate army.  They  were  all,  without  exception,  brutal,  bar- 
barous, sneaking  cowards.  The  world  knows  who  Stephen  A. 
Douglas  was,  but  not  a  soul  who  lives  can  say  the  Harper's 
Magazine  containing  his  article  should  have  been  burned  by 
any  class  of  people.  Dabney,  the  author  of  the  Southern  Bot- 
any, was  at  that  time  Professor  of  the  largest  educational  in- 
stitution in  Alabama.  He  was  born  of  royal  blue  blood.  F. 
F.  V.  stock,  and  he  was  the  Chief  of  Staff  of  the  world-re- 
nowned and  Confederate  worshiped  General  Stonewall  Jack- 
son. He  was  the  author  of  the  Life  of  Stonewall  Jackson, 
a  book  of  which  no  man  ever  read  but  to  have  been  made  the 
better  thereby  and  therefrom.  He  died  in  Victoria,  Texas,  a 
few  years  ago,  not  only  honored  and  loved,  but  respected  and 
revered  by  every  man,  woman  and  child  who  had  ever  come 
in  contact  with  him. 

From  having  done  unto  all  as  I  would  all  should  do  to  me 
I  thought  I  had  friends  in  this  city  of  Richmond,  Texas,  but 
when  the  Committee  of  Public  Safety  talked  as  they  did  to 
me  I  thought  it  was  time  to  quit,  and  never  since  have  I  ever 
calculated  upon  having  any  friends  anywhere  excepting  the 
material  out  of  which  they  are  made — from  bulk — and  were 
duly  run  through  the  United  States  mint.  And  if  I  had  one 
impression  which  I  could  burn  on  the  tablet  of  the  heart  of 
every  young  man  on  earth  today  it  would  be  this : 

"Have  compassion.  Depend  only  upon  what  you  have  to 
carry  you  through,  and  not  on  the  promises  of  anybody.  Keep 
your  money,  and  it  will  keep  you  from  all  harm.  It  will  make 
you  brave  and  it  will  make  you  honest  and  it  will  make  you  a 


52  SECESSION    AND   ITS   VICTIMS. 

good  citizen,  and  in  old  age  you  will  be  happy  from 
being  able  to  take  care  of  yourself,  ever  bearing  in  mind  that 
as  long  as  you  have  the  bone  the  dog  will  follow  you.  Drop 
it,  and  your  bone  and  dog  are  both  gone.  'Weep  and  you 
weep  alone,'  but  laugh  with  a  full  pocket  and  a  good  stiff  bank 
account,  and  the  world  will  laugh  with  you  and  keep  it  up 
all  night  while  you  are  sound  asleep  and  your  interest  is  grow- 
ing." 

My  trunk  was  packed  for  a  long  sea  voyage  and  my  passage 
was  spoken  for,  but  my  heart  failed  me,  for  I  commenced 
reasoning  with  myself,  and  whenever  a  man  commences  this 
he  may  set  it  down  in  advance  that  the  devil  is  going  to  get 
the  best  of  him,  just  as  he  did  with  me  when  from  reasoning 
I  changed  my  mind  and  became  a  soldier  in  a  cause  which 
was  lost  solely  because  its  underlying  foundation,  corner  rock, 
side  structure  and  the  key  of  the  ark  were  all  of  an  ilk  and 
sort  that  composed  the  Committee  of  Public  Safety  in  Fort 
Bend  County,,  Texas. 

I  have  found  it  true  in  life,  and  not  as  respects  myself 
personally  but  also  all  intimate  friends  who  have  made  life  a 
success,  that  first  impressions  are  the  ones  that  should  ever 
govern  in  all  matters  of  business,  and  particularly  and  espe- 
cially in  affairs  of  the  heart.  Who  stands  by  them  will  have 
less  of  grief  in  after  life  and  more  of  joy  to  light  his  way  than 
will  he  who  reasons  with  the  devil,  who  may  always  change 
his  mind  and  lands  the  poor  wretch  on  a  desert  or  an  iceberg. 

I  often  think  of  the  fable  of  the  man,  the  boy  and  the  ass 
which  they  were  driving,  or  rather  leading.  They  met  a  man 
who  said: 

"You  old  fool,  why  don't  you  ride  that  animal?" 

Whereupon  the  man  got  upon  the  mule.  Then  they  met 
another  man  who  said : 

"You  are  a  funny  man,  riding  there  and  letting  this  boy 


SECESSION    AND   ITS   VICTIMS.  53 

walk  behind.  That  ass  is  plenty  strong  enough  to  carry  you 
both." 

And  then  up  went  the  boy,  and  it  was  not  long  before  down 
went  the  poor  ass,  and  that  is  what  they  got  for  listening  to 
other  people. 

We  are  told,  if  not  in  the  Divine  Book  then  in  some  other 
good  book,  or  perhaps  it  has  been  orally  handed  down  to 
me,  that  "the  road  to  hell  is  paved  with  good  intentions,"  and 
I  surely  have  found  it  so. 

When  a  boy,  twelve  years  old,  I  had  a  good  coon  dog.  It 
was  not  infrequent  that  I  went  out  in  the  woods  at  night  and 
I  and  Ring  (Ring  was  my  dog)  would  come  in  with  a  couple 
of  big  coons  whose  pelts  were  worth  one  dollar  and  fifty  cents 
each.  It  was  my  coon  and  pelt,  but  when  it  was  sold  it  was 
dad's  money.  I  acquired  the  reputation  of  being  the  best  coon 
hunter  there  was  in  the  country,  which  was  challenged  by  a 
boy  living  some  distance  off,  and  in  a  way  and  a  place  where 
I  could  not  resent  it,  being  at  a  Sunday  meeting.  He  was 
bragging  on  his  dog  more  than  on  the  coons  he  had  killed.  I 
blubbered  out: 

"You  show  your  coon  skins;  let  that  tell  what  sort  of  a 
dog  you've  'got !" 

I  have  made  it  a  rule  through  life  to  take  no  one's  advice 
in  any  matter  who  had  no  coon  skins  to  show.  The  poor  but 
well  meaning  mendicant  who  knocks  at  your  door  is  as  full 
of  good  advice  as  an  egg  is  of  meat. 

I  went  into  the  Confederacy  because  the  devil  persuaded 
me  to  believe  that  the  proper  thing  for  me  to  do  was  to  go 
with  my  people,  right  or  wrong,  to  always  go  with  the  crowd. 
The  devil  fooled  me  that  time.  An  old  Quaker  proverb  says : 
"If  a  man  fools  thee  once  it  is  his  fault,  but  if  he  deceives  thee 
twice  it  is  thy  fault." 

The  reason  that  the  people  of  the  South  are  so  poor  today 
is  the  reason  of  the  devil.  They  still  kiss  the  hand  that  smote 


54  SECESSION    AND    ITS    VICTIMS. 

them,  the  rod  that  struck  them,  the  power  that  ruined  them, 
and  they  hug  that  old  monster  villain  as  all  people  are  apt  to 
hug  a  delusion,  snare  and  fraud. 

It  was  the  old  Democratic  party  and  its  leaders  who  not 
only  robbed  me  of  four  years  of  the  hardest  service  that  a  man 
ever  put  in,  but  robbed  me  and  my  neighbors  and  my  friends 
of  all  that  they  had  on  earth  in  the  way  of  property ;  and  still 
the  people  of  the  South  kiss  the  hand  that  smote  them-.  The 
man  down  there  who  questions  another's  Democracy  is  in 
danger  of  human  wrath,  and  this  reminds  me  of  a  speech  I 
once  heard  before  a  jury  where  a  man  was  being  tried  for 
having  robbed  a  widow  and  her  orphan  of  her  dowry  and 
its  patrimony.  He  stood  in  a  dazed  condition  before  the  jury 
for  a  moment,  and  then,  springing  forward,  he  said: 

"I  have  been  in  hell,  where  they  were  holding  an  election 
for  Chief.  The  pirate  of  the  high  seas  offered  himself  and 
told  of  his  crimes.  The  robber  of  the  land  offered  himself 
and  told  of  his  crimes,  as  did  the  red-handed  murderer,  where- 
upon this  defendant  before  you  rose  up  and  said :  'Make  me 
Chief  of  Hell,  for  I  have  robbed  the  widow  and  the  orphan 
of  their  heritage.'  And  he  was  elected." 

And  this  stands  in  my  estimation  as  good  old-fashioned, 
honest  secession  Democracy,  which  still  lives  in  the  South, 
ready  at  any  and  all  times  to  rear  its  hydro  head  to  down  any 
cause  that  would  benefit  the  South,  crying  "Negro  equality/' 
as  though  they  were  not  the  devils  that  brought  it  on  the 
South. 

The  same  men  who  led  the  cause  which  was  lost  continued 
to  lead  the  party,  and  make  it  impossible  for  the  better  element, 
the  old  staunch  Whig  party,  conservative,  faithful,  who  never 
betrayed  a  trust,  to  come  to  the  front  and  in  a  measure  at  least 
help  the  people  out  of  their  difficulties.  I  have  recently  read 
a  book  entitled  "The  Leopard's  Spots" — and  my  volume  has 
been  read  by  a  great  number  of  my  friends — which  treats  of 


SECESSION   AND   ITS   VICTIMS.  55 

the  days  of  reconstruction  in  the  South,  and  in  such  a  masterly 
way  and  truthful  manner  as  to  challenge  the  admiration  of 
every  man  who  lives  to  remember  that  period,  and  who  should 
read  this  book  before  he  dies.  The  reading  of  this  book  served 
to  remind  me  that  the  worst  radical  scalawags,  villains  and 
thieves  the  South  had  in  the  days  of  reconstruction  were  the 
very  devils  who  were  the  loudest-mouthed  secession  shouters, 
who,  like  my  Committee  of  Public  Safety  in  Texas,  evaded  all 
service  and  especially  that  where  danger  offered. 

My  first  service  was  from  Galveston  in  the  McCloud  expe- 
dition which  went  to  the  mouth  of  the  Rio  Grande  River, 
Brownsville,  to  receive  the  surrender  of  the  United  States 
troops  which  had  lined  our  frontier  on  the  Rio  Grande  and 
had  protected  our  State  from  invasion  and  the  settlers  on  the 
frontier  from  Indians,  and  who  had  been  commanded  to 
surrender  without  the  firing  of  a  gun  by  the  General  com- 
manding the  District  of  Texas,  namely,  Twiggs.  That  is 
enough,  for  even  the  old  copperhead  secessionist  sympathizer, 
James  Buchanan,  issued  a  proclamation  branding  General 
Twiggs  as  a  coward  and  a  traitor  and  dismissing  him  from 
the  army  of  the  United  States  with  all  the  possible  disgrace  in 
the  power  of  the  President  of  the  United  States. 

It  was  in  the  month  of  April,  1861,  that  I  stood  in  line  on 
dress  parade  in  the  Fort  Brown  drill-ground,  together  with 
eight  hundred  other  raw  Texas  troops  that  had  been  landed  a 
few  days  previous  on  the  same  spot  where  Taylor's  army 
landed,  and  who  marched  over  the  battlefields  of  Palo  Alto 
and  Resaca  de  la  Palma,  where  patriots'  blood  had  been  shed. 
Standing  in  this  dress  parade  on  the  banks  of  the  Rio  Grande 
River  we  viewed  another  parade  on  the  other  side  of  the  river, 
which  was  that  of  the  Mexican  army.  Four  steamboats  came 
puffing  around  the  bend  in  sight  of  and  for  six  miles  in  sound 
of  us,  all  loaded  down  with  United  States  dismounted  dra- 
goons, dehorsed  cavalry,  artillerymen  without  cannon,  and 


56  SECESSION   AND   ITS   VICTIMS. 

infantrymen  without  guns.  It  was  along  about  four  o'clock 
in  the  evening ;  the  scene,  the  event,  shall  never  become  effaced 
from  my  memory. 

It  was  our  band,  by  command  of  the  great,  big,  brass- 
buttoned,  hifalutin,  pompous,  big-I-little-you  get-out-of-my- 
way-dog-private,  General  McCloud,  who  sought  to  insult  the 
retiring  representative  of  the  United  States  Government  by 
playing  "Dixie."  The  band  on  the  other  side  of  the  river  took 
up  the  refrain  and  sent  their  most  insulting  song,  to  Texans  as 
well  as  to  the  United  States  army,  to  the  tune  of  "The  Maid 
of  Monterey."  While  the  officers  and  soldiers  were  quietly 
passing  between  our  two  parades,  some  wag  on  board  of  the 
middle  boat  commenced  singing: 

'  Tis  the  song,  the  sigh  of  the  weary : 
Hard  times,  hard  times,  come  again  no  more, 
Many  days  you  have  lingered,  around  my  cabin  door; 
Oh !    Hard  times,  hard  times,  come  again  no  more." 

In  an  instant  there  was  not  a  voice  on  board  either  of  the 
three  boats,  from  the  coal  heaver  in  the  furnace-room  below 
to  the  pilot  above,  but  was  singing  this  refrain  without  the 
help  of  the  band.  They  were  on  their  way  home  to  a  land  of 
plenty  and  peace  from  long  years  of  hard  times,  trials  and 
service,  and  well  might  they  sing  the  songs  they  did. 

About  this  time  a  set  of  Southern  renegades  in  California 
and  Oregon  raised  the  secession  cry  and  sent  assurance  to 
the  Confederacy — then  in  its  swaddling  clothes  at  Mont- 
gomery, Alabama — that  if  an  army  of  Texans,  three  thousand 
strong,  were  sent  to  Tucson,  Arizona,  that  they  would  have 
ten  thousand  men  there  with  all  sorts  of  provisions,  and  that 
we  would  switch  off  down  in  and  take  Sonora,  Chihuahua, 
Durango  and  Tamaulipas  in  Mexico  and  add  them  to  the 
Confederacy.  Whereupon  Mr.  Jefferson  Davis  commissioned 
one  H.  H.  Sibley — he  of  the  Sibley  tent  fame,  an  old  United 


SECESSION   AND  ITS   VICTIMS.  57 

States  dragoon  officer,  who  for  many  years  had  served  in  North 
Texas,  Arizona  and  New  Mexico — as  a  Brigadier  General, 
and  to  raise  three  full  regiments  of  cavalry  in  West  Texas  and 
proceed  with  all  possible  dispatch  to  meet  these  conditions  and 
events  as  well  as  Californians,  and  to  proceed  forthwith  with- 
out the  loss  of  time  or  failure  to  swipe  the  whole  thing. 

Now  I  had  had  some  previous  Indian  experience  and  on 
the  frontier,  and  it  was  a  snap  to  get  into  the  Sibley  Brigade 
California  deal,  and  being  a  desirable  catch  I  had  no  difficulty 
in  getting  in  "Gotch"  Hardiman's  Company  A  of  the  First 
Regiment,  which  was  formed  by  Colonel  Riley,  a  grand  and 
noble  man,  and  who  fell  at  the  head  of  his  column  at  Irish 
Bend,  near  Franklin,  Louisiana.  Of  this  I  refer  to  later. 

It  was  not  long  before  we  and  our  squadron  company  took 
up  the  line  of  march  to  grow  with  the  great  Northwest,  of 
which  there  were  four  thousand  who  followed  our  trail  before 
the  last  of  the  brigade  left  San  Antonio.  I  believe  that  I  state 
the  truth  with  no  fear  of  contradiction  when  I  say  that  three 
thousand  five  hundred  of  these  men  were  the  best  that  ever 
threw  leg  over  a  horse  or  that  had  ever  sworn  allegiance  to 
any  cause.  All-around  men,  natural-born  soldiers,  they  were 
under  twenty-five,  with  a  liberal  sprinkling  of  older  ones  who 
had  seen  more  or  less  service  on  the  frontier. 

I  was  never  sworn  into  the  Confederate  service.  I  enrolled 
as  a  scout  and  as  one  of  special  privileges,  being  a  correspondent 
of  the  Richmond  Examiner,  New  Orleans  Picayune  and  Gal- 
I'cstoH  Nczt's.  There  was  little  going  on  or  liable  to  go  on  at 
headquarters,  or,  as  for  that  matter,  anywhere  else  close 
around,  but  that  I  knew  more  or  less  of  and  about,  and  there 
was  no  time  but  that  I  knew  a  great  deal  more  than  any  one 
man  in  the  command  for  a  moment  thought  that  I  did,  and. 
what  is  more,  I  knew  that  the  less  I  knew  when  it  came  to 
talking  to  the  common  herd  or  with  any  of  the  upper  crust, 


58  SECESSION    AND   ITS    VICTIMS. 

the  better  off  I  would  be  in  the  general  round-up  when  all 
cattle  had  to  be  branded. 

The  first  difficulty  that  I  got  into  was  with  two  blow-hard 
secession  cowards,  who,  knowing  somewhat  oi  my  position, 
but  of  no  rank,  interviewed  me  much  as  did  the  Committee 
o>f  Public  Safety,  to  learn  of  my  views  as  to  the  possibility  of 
our  being  able  to  reach  New  Mexico  before  the  war  ended, 
and  did  I  think  that  the  Yankees  were  really  going  to  fight, 
and  didn't  I  believe  that  any  good  Southern  man  could  whip 
four  or  five  Yankees  any  time,  anywhere?  I  answered  them 
very  briefly,  and  time  proved  that  I  told  them  the  truth  only 
in  a  measure,  for  I  thought  that  there  was  more  real  backbone 
in  the  South  than  I  found  to  be  the  case,  and  I  calculated  upon 
the  war  lasting  at  least  eight  years.  One  of  these  men  said : 

"If  I  thought  as  you  do,  I  would  cross  the  Rio  Grande 
River  tonight  and  go  to  Mexico." 

I  only  said,  "No  doubt  you  would."  This  worthy  will  be 
referred  to  again  when  I  get  to  telling  of  the  Federal  retreat 
from  Alexandria,  Louisiana. 

The  next  difficulty  that  I  got  into  was  the  telling  the  officer 
in  command  that  I  had  interpreted  a  Concho  Indian  sign,  which 
means  a  sign  which  could  be  read  and  interpreted  by  the  four 
great  Southwest  tribes  of  Indians,  the  Comanche,  the  Apache, 
the  Gila  and  the  Pawnee,  and  which  sign  read :  "A  joint 
enemy  approaches." 

I  knew  that  every  Indian  warrior  within  a  radius  of  twelve 
hundred  miles  knew  that  that  night  eight  hundred  armed  Texas 
Rangers  would  camp  on  the  Rio  Grande  River  at  Fort 
Quitman.  I  never  in  my  life  had  been  turned  down  by  any 
person  as  that  commander  turned  me  down,  and  in  language 
used  by  his  sort,  and  which  I  largely  afterwards  acquired  from 
dealing  with  his  sort  and  driving  mules.  He  told  me  to  attend 
to  my  own  business  and  to  go  back  to  my  tent  and  not  be 
volunteering  information  to  him.  I  found  out  that  night 


SECESSION   AND    ITS    VICTIMS.  59 

before  going  to  bed  that  he  was  drunk  on  Kummel,  a  Dutch 
drink  that  is  guaranteed  to  convert  a  Christian  into  a  pagan 
in  short  order. 

I  asked  permission  from  him  the  next  morning  to  go  to 
General  Sibley's  headquarters,  which  were  well  back  in  the 
rear,  as  was  so  often  the  case  in  our  army  when  they  should 
have  been  along  in  the  front  ranks,  but  I  was  turned  down 
again.  Unbeknown  to  the  quick-made-big  man,  for  he  was 
only  a  nigger  driver  at  home,  I  wrote  and  put  in  a  stick  a 
dispatch  to  General  Sibley,  telling  him  of  the  signs  I  had  seen 
flashed  from  the  mountain  tops  first  on  the  Mexican  side  of 
the  river,  then  on  ours,  and  lastly  far  off  in  the  northeast 
mountains.  Sibley  came  closer  up  to  the  advance  column  and 
sent  for  me. 

I  selected  two  men  as  my  companions  in  the  execution  of 
his  request.  In  forty-eight  hours'  time  I  informed  him  of  the 
meeting  of  the  Indians  of  New  Mexico  and  Arizona,  and  gave 
it  as  my  opinion  that  it  was  a  peace  meeting  and  foreboded 
us  no  harm,  but  that  signals  would  have  to  be  burned  on  the 
mountains  lying  back  of  El  Paso  signifying  that  their  previous 
signals  had  been  interpreted  and  as  meaning  peace.  This 
resulted  in  our  army  not  being  massacred  in  detail,  for  Sibley's 
friendship  with  the  Indians  was  very  great,  while  that  of  his 
brother-in-law,  Canby,  commander  of  the  Federal  forces  at 
Fort  Craig,  was  nil. 

But  for  Sibley's  treaty  with  the  Indians  the  battle  of  Val 
Verde  would  never  have  been  fought,  and  I  doubt  very  much 
whether  one  in  the  whole  brigade  would  have  ever  returned 
home,  for  with  the  Indians  or  with  Canby,  Kit  Carson  and 
General  Slough,  coupled  with  the  natural  hatred  that  existed 
with  all  the  Mexicans  living  in  Mexico  and  Arizona,  and,  as 
for  that  matter,  all  of  their  relatives  in  the  Republic  of  Mexico, 
we  would  have  fared  much  worse  than  did  the  McCloud  Santa 
Fe  expedition  in  1840  of  twelve  hundred  picked  Texans  under 


60  SECESSION   AND   ITS   VICTIMS. 

this  same  General  McCloud  to  whom  I  have  referred,  all  of 
whom  were  lost  excepting  the  General  and  twenty-five  or  thirty 
others  in  the  rear-guard  who  escaped  home  down  through  the 
"No  Man's  Land."  They  had  reached  the  Rio  Grande  River 
somewhere  near  Albuquerque.  Those  who  were  not  murdered 
were  marched  from  there  to  the  City  of  Mexico,  sixteen 
hundred  miles.  There  was  scarcely  a  day  of  the  march  which 
did  not  mark  the  final  departure  of  one  from  the  torments  of 
the  march. 

General  Sibley  detailed  my  Colonel,  Riley,  to  go  and  see 
the  Governor  of  Sonora  on  the  subject  of  secession  and  annexa- 
tion combination  and  co-operation.  Riley  took  some  money 
with  him,  came  back  without  it  and  with  a  flea  in  his  ear,  and 
we  got  no  wheat,  and  but  for  the  dried  buffalo  and  antelope 
meat  that  the  Indians  brought  us  later  on,  we  would  have 
starved  to  death.  The  compact  that  those  Indians  made  with 
Sibley  endured  until  the  last.  Canby  could  control  them  in 
no  way  against  their  compact.  Had  they  done  what  Canby, 
Kit  Carson  and  others  offered  all  sorts  of  rewards  to  do,  we 
would  never  have  reached  the  State  of  Texas  again  after  the 
battle  of  Glorietta  Canyon,  twenty-six  miles  northwest  of  Santa 
Fe  and  near  Fort  Union,  where  Sibley 's  Brigade  met  its 
Waterloo  and  commenced  its  rapid  retreat.  Every  man  for 
himself,  nothing  on  the  order  of  things.  The  retreat  of 
Napoleon  from  Moscow  would  be  about  the  only  parallel  in 
history. 

We  were  now  sixteen  hundred  miles,  as  the  road  mean- 
dered, from  our  base  of  supplies,  San  Antonio,  Texas,  with 
naught  but  a  desert  and  land  of  desolation  lying  between  us, 
with  an  enemy  in  front  at  Fort  Craig,  another  pressing  us  in 
the  rear,  while  on  both  flanks  hovered  the  most  bloodthirsty 
and  warlike  tribe  of  American  Indians.  Of  this  retreat  my 
next  chapter  will  relate,  and  though  I  know  that  my  power 
to  convey  to  the  average  reader  a  faint  idea  of  our  sufferings 
will  fall  far  short,  yet  I  will  make  the  attempt. 


SIBLEY'S  RETREAT  FROM  SANTA  FE. 


That  man  when  first  born  is  the  most  helpless  of  all 
creatures  of  God's  make,  all  know ;  but  that  he  is  the  toughest 
animal  after  he  has  been  sized  up  and  given  a  few  tough  les- 
sons, and  can  stand  more  than  any  animal  on  earth,  except  it 
may  be  the  patient  brute  which  bore  our  Savior  out  of 
Jerusalem,  none  can  deny. 

There  may  have  been  an  order  issued  by  the  General  in 
command  for  our  retreat.  One  thing  sure,  it  was  never  read 
out  on  dress  parade.  After  the  battle  of  Val  Verde,  on  the 
twenty-first  day  of  February,  1861,  the  army  of  invasion 
marched  north,  leaving  General  Canby  in  Fort  Craig  with 
from  four  to  six  thousand  troops  in  our  rear  and  between  us 
and  our  supplies  and  reserves,  reaching  Albuquerque  two  days 
afterwards,  where  there  had  been  stored  since  the  war  with 
Mexico,  it  has  been  estimated,  more  than  six  million  dollars' 
worth  of  commissary,  quartermaster  and  medical  supplies. 
Why  it  should  have  been  done  I  never  knew,  nor  did  anyone 
else,  unless  it  was  because  our  men  were  getting  drunk  on  the 
whisky  and  our  commander  had  never  been  sober,  but  the 
torch  was  applied  to  this  immense  storehouse  of  provisions  and 
supplies,  and  no  man  can  describe  the  fury  of  that  flame  on 
that  dark  night  of  the  twenty-sixth  of  February. 

Burning  bacon,  brandy  and  whisky  and  quartermaster's 
supplies,  with  the  bursting  of  bombs  and  the  terrific  explosion 
of  powder  when  the  magazine  was  reached.  The  condition 
of  our  army  of  independent  Texans,  the  majority  of  whom 
loved  "red  rye,"  can  better  be  imagined  than  I  can  undertake 
to  describe  and  explain.  And  perhaps  it  is  as  well  that  the 
veil  of  obscurity  be  drawn  over  it  forever  and  a  day. 

61 


62  SIBLEY'S  RETREAT  FROM  SANTA  FE. 

From  this  place  we  went  to  Santa  Fe,  where  the  same 
burning  act  was  repeated,  and  where  in  less  than  five  days  we 
were  suffering  the  agonies  of  starvation  from  our  own  acts 
of  vandalism!.  There  was  no  excuse  for  burning  these  sup- 
plies. It  was  the  act  of  a  maddened  brain  or  brains.  It  was 
a  case  of  those  whom  the  gods  would  destroy  they  first  made 
mad. 

We  were  advised  that  there  was  but  a  small  Federal  force, 
one  company  of  regulars,  at  Fort  Union,  thirty-five  or  forty 
miles  northeast  of  Santa  Fe  and  at  the  head  of  Glorietta 
Canyon.  I  have  often  thanked  my  Creator  that  I  was  not  in 
good  repute  with  my  commanding  General  as  a  scout  at  this 
time,  and  therefore  none  of  the  murders  could  be  laid  at  my 
door,  for  it  was  no  better  than  murder,  the  sending  of  eight 
hundred  men  up  Glorietta  Canyon  to  attack  Fort  Union,  where 
General  Slough  and  sixty-five  hundred  picked  Northwest 
plainsmen  were  waiting  at  the  mouth  of  the  trap  for  our 
coming,  and  had  been  for  many  days. 

The  three  hundred  and  eighty  who  had  answered  their 
last  roll  call  the  day  before,  whose  bodies  and  bones  were  left 
near  the  mouth  of  this  canyon,  were  just  so  many  victims 
who  fell  in  front  of  General  John  Barleycorn.  They  were 
soldiers  who  knew  only  how  to  obey,  to  do  and  to  die.  The 
commanding  General  of  our  forces,  was  an  old  army  officer, 
whose  love  for  liquor  exceeded  that  for  home,  country  or  God. 

Along  about  this  time  I  acquired  considerable  light,  and  it 
seemed  to  me  as  though  all  my  comrades  and  friends  were 
acquiring  more  and  more  of  darkness.  I  shaped  my  course 
accordingly,  and  without  deserting  the  friends  that  I  had 
started  in  with,  I  drew  into  the  background  and,  as  the  saying 
is,  "pulled  the  hole  in  after  me,"  to  come  to  the  front  again  at 
another  time,  when  I  know  of  my  own  knowledge  that  but 
for  the  giving  of  a  signal  and  those*  which  followed,  every 
man  of  the  brigade  who  sought  to  reach  home  over  the  route 


SIBLEY'S  RETREAT  FROM  SANTA  FE.  63 

from  Eagle  Canyon,  Eagle  Springs,  Van  Horn's  Wells  and 
the  Dead  Man's  Water  Holes  by  Fort  Davis  and  Wild  Rose 
Pass  down  Olympia  Canyon,  would  have  been  massacred. 

The  retreat  of  the  Army  of  New  Mexico,  as  we  were 
called,  from  Santa  Fe  down  the  Rio  Grande  to  Socorro  was 
like  that  of  the  skedaddling  of  a  crowd  of  urchins  who  had 
been  caught  in  a  melon  patch. 

At  Socorro  we  met  Canby,  who  moved  up  from  Fort  Craig. 
That  night  the  torch  was  applied  to  every  burnable  article 
that  we  had,  and  without  guide  or  compass,  track  or  trail,  much 
less  a  road,  we  started  up  over  that  tall  mountain  westward 
towards  Cook's  Peaks,  making  a  detour  of  two  hundred  miles 
over  that  desert,  striking  the  Rio  Grande  River  again  near 
old  Fort  Thorn.  It  was  here  that  I  rejoined  my  companions, 
and  with  them  the  mail  from  the  loved  ones  in  Texas  and 
sixty  pack  mules  well  loaded  with  dried  buffalo  meat,  but  for 
which  every  one  of  the  fourteen  hundred  men  would  have 
perished  in  the  next  twenty-four  hours.  Should  I  tell  how 
this  was  procured  and  from  whom  and  by  whom  and  how  paid 
for,  I  would  scarcely  be  believed,  but  it  was  by  no  act  of 
Divine  Providence  nor  was  it  a  miracle,  as  so  many  of  my 
old  comrades  seemed  to  think.  The  only  thing  I  ever  regretted 
about  it  was  that  the  drunken  individual  who  was  the  cause 
of  all  our  misfortune  was  also  kept  from  starving,  but  since 
we  are  told  in  Divine  Scripture  that  it  rains  on  the  unjust  as 
well  as  the  just,  we  will  let  it  go  at  that. 

From  this  point  to  El  Paso,  about  three  hundred  and  seven- 
ty-five miles,  we  walked  and  staggered  along  like  the  reeling, 
hungry,  thirsty  wretches  that  we  were,  with  no  head,  nobody 
to  direct  or  command,  with  the  bloodthirsty  Dog  Canyon 
Apache  Indian  following  in  our  wake  and  scalping  the  poor 
unfortunate  boys  whose  blistered  feet  and  enfeebled  frame 
made  it  impossible  for  them  to  march,  farther.  The  memory 
of  those  days  and  the  next  eight  hundred  miles'  march  before 


64  SIBLEY'S  RETREAT  FROM  SANTA  FE. 

us  could  never  be  effaced.  No  army  or  body  of  men  on  the 
American  continent  ever  suffered  as  did  the  men  on  this 
retreat,  and  which  has  never  been  told  in  song  or  story,  because 
of  the  reflections  it  might  bring  on  the  men  who  were  at  the 
head  of  the  lay-out.  Such  loyalty  /  never  swore  to  and  never 
will. 

It  was  on  the  twenty-sixth  day  of  April,  1862,  that  the  first 
men  took  up  the  line  of  march  from  El  Paso  to  San  Antonio, 
Texas,  seven  hundred  and  forty  miles  over  the  hot  desert 
country,  with  seven  and  one-half  pounds  of  unbolted  flour  and 
nothing  else.  They  had  thrown  away  their  guns.  A  few 
carried  their  six-shooters.  All  hung  on  to  their  iron  ramrods. 
There  were  six  or  eight  horses  and  a  wagon  with  four  mules 
to  the  first  party  of  six  hundred  men.  It  matters  little  the 
part  I  played  in  this  retreat  from  now  on.  I  was  with  them 
afoot  where  but  a  short  time  ago  in  a  fine  carriage  I  drove 
over  the  old  camp  ground  from  whence  we  started.  I  call 
back  forty-one  years  ago,  when,  after  a  long  and  weary  march 
of  nearly  one  hundred  miles  in  the  valleys  of  the  Rio  Grande 
River  to  Fort  Quitman,  we  ascended  to  the  plateau  country  up 
Eagle  Canyon,  twenty  miles  to  the  old  overland  stage  route 
station,  which  was  in  ruins,  and  stands  there  today,  as  I  am 
told,  at  Eagle  Springs,  where  there  was  a  well  like  Jacob's 
well,  forty  feet  deep,  sixty  feet  in  diameter,  with  circling  steps 
around. 

A  live  subterranean  stream  of  pure  water  flowed  through 
a  cavernous  rock.  Canby  had  employed  the  Indians  to  fill  this 
well  full  of  sheep.  Where  they  came  from  I  never  have  been 
able  to  find  out,  or  whether  it  was  the  La  Pan  band  of 
Comanche  Indians  or  the  Dog  Canyon  Apaches  no  one  has 
ever  been  able  to  tell,  except  General  Canby's  chief  scout,  Kit 
Carson,  the  then  terror  of  the  plains. 

We  had  no  water  kegs.  We  poled  on  twenty-two  miles 
to  Van  Horn's  Wells,  which  was  a  similar  well  to  that  at  Eagle 


SIBLEY'S  RETREAT  FROM  SANTA  FE.  65 

Springs  and  which  was  also  filled  with  sheep.  How  and  by 
whom  this  was  done  has  been  one  of  the  mysteries  of  the  war 
that  I  have  not  been  able  to  solve.  From  here  it  was  thirty-six 
miles  to  the  Dead  Man's  Water  Holes,  sixteen  miles  northwest 
of  Fort  Davis,  making  a  distance  of  eighty-five  miles  that  we 
had  to  tramp  afoot  over  this  desert  road  under  a  hot  burning 
sun  facing  sirocco  winds  which  blew  from  the  southwest  over 
the  parched  plains  with  heat  that,  once  felt,  can  never  be 
forgotten,  but  which  cannot  be  described. 

Twenty  or  a  less  number  of  Apache  Indians  could  have 
massacred  the  entire  body  of  men.  As  I  dictate  this  my  pic- 
tures before  me  portray  suffering,  famishing,  perishing  men, 
strung  out  for  twenty  miles  on  a  level,  flat  desert  road,  crazed 
with  their  condition,  reeling  like  mad  or  drunk.  The  best 
walkers  were  the  first  to  reach  the  water,  about  midnight,  and 
pass  the  word  back  to  the  next  and  he  to  the  next.  By  day- 
light all  were  supposed  to  be  present,  though  be  it  understood 
that  there  was  no  roll  call,  no  fife  or  drum  sounded,  no  guard 
mounting  or  any  sort  of  official  appearances. 

As  each  famishing  individual  quenched  his  thirst  he  would 
go  back  and  lie  down  across  the  road,  the  only  place  to  lie,  for- 
it  was  all  cactus,  cat-claw  and  sage  brush  on  each  side.  My 
twot  companions  and  I  were  among  the  first  to  reach  the  water 
and  were  the  first  to  lie  down  and  take  a  nap.  At  sunrise  I 
started  to  the  rear,  where  the  wagon  had  been  left  and  the 
mules  turned  loose.  In  the  wagon  there  was  a  pick,  a  spade 
and  a  shovel,  and  the  corpse  of  a  young  friend  who  had 
perished  on  the  road,  which  I  had  lifted  into  the  wagon  without 
aid. 

I  could  have  killed  every  man  with  that  pickax  as  they  lay 
there,  so  sound  asleep  were  they.  And  a  more  ghastly  sight 
I  never  beheld  than  those  men  lying  on  their  backs,  the  sun 
shining  in  their  faces.  For  forty-eight  hours  we  had  had 
nothing  to  eat.  We  had  walked  eighty-five  miles  without  a 


66  SIBLEY'S  RETREAT  FROM  SANTA  FE, 

drop  of  water.  We  had  had  no  salt  in  anything  we  had  eaten 
for  nearly  twenty  days.  Men  whose  ordinary  weight  was  one 
hundred  and  eighty-five  pounds  weighed  less  than  one  hundred 
and  fifteen,  as  was  proven  o<n  the  scales  at  Fort  Davis  the  day 
after  the  time  of  which  I  speak  of  our  arriving  at  the  Dead 
Man's  Water  Holes. 

At  Fort  Davis  we  found  wood  with  which  to  build  fires 
to  bake  our  unbolted  flour,  that  we  kneaded  into  a  dough  which 
we  wound  around  our  iron  ramrods  and  held  over  the  fire. 
We  rested  at  Fort  Davis  that  day  and  night.  At  three  o'clock 
in  the  morning  myself  and  two  others,  with  whom  I  had  had 
much  experience  on  the  scout,  started  out  to  pick  our  way  to 
Wild  Rose  Pass  to  see  if  we  could  spy  out  anything  in  the 
enemy's  country  in  front  of  us. 

We  saw  a  smoke  on  Olympia  Mountains  in  the  northeast, 
which  on  being  interpreted  said:  "Pursue  the  enemy  no 
farther." 

Ellam,  Burrows  and  myself  were  the  three  happiest  mortals 
on  earth  when  we  saw  this  smoke  sign,  and  as  it  has  always 
proved  to  be  the  case  that  "Where  ignorance  is  bliss  'tis  folly 
to  be  wise,"  we  never  told  the  boys  of  what  we  saw. 

These  were  the  last  Indian  signs  that  I  ever  saw,  and  this 
was  the  last  act  of  my  life  as  an  Indian  scout  in  an  Indian 
country.  A  premonition  seemed  to  tell  me  at  the  time  that 
it  would  be,  and  it  is  very  possible  that  there  never  lived  a 
mortal  on  this  great  earth  that  felt  so  thankful  as  I  did  to  feel 
that  it  was  the  last. 

In  after  years  I  came  across  old  "Rip"  Ford  and  Jack 
Baylor  and  McNulty  and  a  host  of  others  whom  I  might  name, 
who  had  from  the  earliest  days  of  the  Texas  republic  up  to 
that  time  been  engaged  in  Indian  warfare,  and  from  whom  I 
learned  my  early  lessons,  and  particularly  in  Indian  signs,  and 
I  might  say  Indian  astrology,  for  be  it  understood  that  all  the 


SIBLEY'S  RETREAT  FROM  SANTA  FE.  67 

Indian  chiefs  and  medicine  men  had  an  astrology  that  was 
something  fearful  to  behold  when  unfolded  to  a  novice. 

I  might  fill  pages  of  solid  printed  matter  recounting  my 
experiences  on  the  frontier,  and  I  might  do  as  a  great  number 
of  others  have  done  in  recounting  their  experiences — tell  a  pack 
of  lies  and  give  accounts  of  blood-curdling,  Indian-killing, 
single-combat  fights.  I  believe  that  I  can  say  truthfully  that 
my  experience  in  this  Indian  warfare  business  was  about  second 
or  third  only  to  others  who  went  before  me,  but  it  was  far 
superior  to  any  one  who  came  after  me,  for  when  I  quit  the 
trail  there  was  none  left  on  it  except  old  Geronimo  in  New 
Mexico. 

I  have  frequently  listened  to  stories  of  men  whom  I  knew 
and  who  had  even  been  with  me  in  Indian  hunts,  that  were  so 
unreal  and  foreign  to  the  truth  that  I  never  afterwards  thought 
strange  of  God's  having  repented  that  He  made  man. 

I  have  been  in  my  day  many  things  and  in  many  places 
and  many  conditions,  under  many  circumstances,  and  when 
cornered  right  down,  as  I  have  been  on  more  than  one  occasion, 
in  order  to  save  my  life  or  that  of  my  friends  and  the  cause 
I  was  serving,  the  greatest  liar  on  earth  could  not  have  excelled 
me  in  talking  out  of  a  bad  scrape,  as  scout  and  secret  service 
man  for  the  cause  that  was  lost.  I  don't  say  government, 
because  I  have  too  much  respect  for  my  high  opinion  of 
government  to  allow  anyone  to  intimate  to  me  that  the  Con- 
federacy was  governed  by  a  government,  administered  by  men 
who  were  made  of  that  material  my  ancestors  were,  whose 
blood  marked  other  spots  than  those  of  Valley  Forge. 

I  have  been  in  a  good  many  battles  and  a  great  number 
of  skirmishes  where  the  random  guns  were  fired,  but  it  was 
always  my  province  and  divine  gift  to  smell  danger  afar,  and 
if  ever  I  prayed  to  be  "delivered  from  temptation"  I  never 
failed  to  put  in  at  the  same  time  "and  from  all  danger." 

I  may  have  been  wounded  often,  and  certainly  once  was 


68  SIBLEY'S  RETREAT  FROM  SANTA  FE. 

left  on  the  battlefield  tot  be  scalped  by  the  accursed  Comanche, 
but  I  never  was  half  as  badly  hurt  as  I  was  scared,  and  I  know 
that  the  man  who  says  that  he  went  into  battle  or  a  skirmish 
.with  as  much  sang  froid  as  he  would  go  into  a  banquet  room 
or  take  a  seat  in  the  midst  of  a  Methodist  camp  meeting — he 
is  a  liar  and  the  truth  is  not  in  him. 

I  have  been  in  battles  where,  after  the  first  flash  of  fire  and 
graveyard  sounds  had  passed  over  me,  like  others  around  I 
became  so  badly  scared — what  else  to  call  it  I  do  not  know — 
that  I  became  perfectly  indifferent  to  the  falling  of  dead  com- 
panions around  me.  I  could  cite  an  instance  of  a  battle  into 
which  I  was  unluckily  inveigled.  My  horoscope  had  got  a 
little  out  of  whack  and  my  compass  pointed  the  wrong  way,  or 
I  am  very  sure  I  would  not  have  been  in  there.  After  the 
first  onslaught  I  became  so  palsied  that  I  became  reckless,  and 
what  I  did  I  never  would  have  remembered,  though  I  was  given 
credit  for  the  most  strategic  and  heroic  act  of  the  season  in 
battles  that  were  then  about  culminating,  and  for  which  I 
received  great  honor. 

It  just  came  that  way  and  I  had  nothing  to  do  with  it,  for 
had  I  added  the  word  "Yankee"  to  my  yell  in  crying  out  "Clear 
the  road  for  the  cavalry!"  the  effect  would  have  been  very 
different.  This  cry  was  taken  up  by  all  of  the  boys,  and  the 
woods  were  made  to  ring  with  the  sound.  The  Yankees  were 
pressing  us  to  the  wall — they  were  nine  thousand  strong — and, 
thinking  that  we  meant  the  Texas  Cavalry,  they  commenced 
forming  solid  squares  and  we  commenced  a  real  old-fashioned 
Ranger  rush  to  the  rear  and  got  away. 

This  was  at  the  battle  of  Irish  Bend,  near  Franklin, 
Louisiana,  where  the  Federal  General  Grover  went  to  the  rear 
of  Taylor's  army  and  came  within  an  ace  of  cutting  off  our 
retreat  from'  Bissland,  and  which  would  have  been  done  but 
for  the  cry  we  raised,  after  having  been  badly  whipped  and 
had  fallen  back  half  a  mile,  of  "Clear  the  road  for  the  cavalry !" 


SIBLEY'S  RETREAT  FROM  SANTA  FE,  69 

General  Grover  had  no  cavalry  and  he  thought  that  he  was 
running  up  against  the  Texas  Cavalry  Division,  and  when  they 
heard  this  yell  they  thought  their  day  had  come.  We  thought 
the  same  way  about  that  time. 

It  was  here  that  my  beau  ideal  of  a  gentleman  and  officer, 
Colonel  James  Riley,  was  killed.  He  was  the  very  counterpart 
both  in  looks  and  actions  of  General  Robert  E.  Lee.  He  was 
a  great  friend  of  mine;  I  had  been  of  his.  I  felt  his  loss 
keenly,  not  so  much  for  myself  as  for  my  comrades.  His  wife 
was  on  the  battlefield  with  him  and  drove  the  ambulance  carry- 
ing his  body  to  the  rear.  She  was  a  woman  who  was  adored 
by  every  soldier  of  the  old  brigade. 

I  visited  this  battle-ground  forty  years  afterwards,  but 
nothing  was  there  to  mark  the  spot,  and  no  one  there  who  had 
been  a  participant  in  that  fight  that  saved  Dick  Taylor's  army 
of  Louisiana.  The  retreat  of  which  I  have  been  giving  an 
account  was  performed  in  two  months'  time.  Much  less  than 
one-half  the  number  of  men  who  had  left  San  Antonio  for  the 
gold  fields  of  California  or  the  rich  mines  of  Mexico  ever 
returned,  and  the  larger  half  of  those  who  did  lived  a  life  of 
suffering  because  of  their  extreme  hardships  in  this  campaign. 

I  was  officer  of  the  guard  one  night  at  an  outpost  station 
on  the  Del  Murty  Mountains,  south  of  Fort  Craig,  a  few  days 
before  the  battle  of  Val  Verde.  The  twelve  o'clock  relief 
came  in  and  one  of  the  boys  crawled  under  my  blankets  with 
me  to  sleep  on  the  frozen  ground,  when  he  said,  calling  me 
by  my  army  nickname,  which  I  will  give  to  no  man : 

"We're  going — to  have — a  fight — in  the — mornin' !" 

Thinking  that  he  had  seen  something  that  should  be 
reported  to  headquarters,  I  said: 

"Why  so,  Frank?" 

"Well,  I  heard — them — Yankees — down  there — cocking 
their — cannons." 

Frank  had  never  seen  a  cannon.     He  had  heard  the  stories 


70  SIBLEY'S  RETREAT  FROM  SANTA  FE. 

of  loading  them  by  oxen  pulling  the  balls  in  and  being  driven 
out  at  the  touchrhole,  and  he  imagined  that  they  were  cocked 
as  he  cocked  his  double^barrel  squirrel  gun,  which  made  a  great 
sound,  and  that  of  course  the  cocking  of  a  cannon  would  make 
a  correspondingly  loud  sound.  Frank  was  a  great  favorite  in 
the  camp  and  had  but  little  to  say  to  any  one,  and  that  only  on 
rare  occasions.  He  was  once  asked  to  come  into  the  tent  and 
have  something  good  to  eat.  He  said :  "It's — been  so — long 
— since  I — had  anything — to  eat — I  think — I  had — better  have 
— some  filling — stuff  first,"  supposing  that  he  was  going  to  get 
pie  and  cake  and  that  only. 

Frank  got  drunk  on  Louisiana  rum  hot  from  the  still,  and 
on  being  questioned  afterwards  how  he  felt,  said:  "At  first 
— felt — awful  bad — and  then — I  felt — as  though — I  was — 
going  to  die — and  then — I  felt — as  though — I  couldn't  die." 

Frank  had  a  girl  back  home,  but  he  could  not  write  to  her, 
and  had  he  been  able  to  have  written  she  could  not  have  read 
it.  I  did  Frank's  corresponding,  as  I  did  that  of  no  few,  to 
say  the  least.  I  got  my  copy  of  love  letters  from  a  letter 
writer's  book,  and  I  could  turn  them  off  with  great  rapidity, 
but  when  seconds  commenced  coming  in,  then  I  had  to  rub 
my  brain  for  originality  along  on  this  line,  and  I  soon  became 
an  expert,  a  proficient.  I  practiced  on  phrases  and  expressions 
that  would  just  make  the  girls  come  down  off  of  their  perches 
whether  or  no.  Half  of  the  young  ladies  could  not  read  them, 
so  they  had  to  look  to  some  one  who  would  interpret  the  same, 
and  there's  where  all  was  lost,  for  love  epistles  second  and  third 
hand  become  cold  affairs.  Anyway,  when  the  girls  got  to 
comparing  and  found  out  that  there  was  one-man  power  behind 
these  gushing  expressions,  for  I  wrote  a  very  marked  hand, 
trouble  commenced  with  the  boys  for  having  let  some  one  else 
find  out  their  secret.  I  practiced  along  on  this  line  so  much 
that  when  I  got  to  doing  the  job  for  myself,  I  was  afterwards 
told,  and  many  years  afterwards,  that  it  was  done  perfectly. 


SIBLEY'S  RETREAT  FROM  SANTA  FE.  71 

I  have  listened  to  men  recounting  deeds  of  heroism,  valor 
and  endurance  in  other  branches  of  the  service  and  in  other 
sections  of  the  country,  but  I  am  confident  that  there  was  no 
army  in  the  Confederacy  whose  suffering,  privations,  hardships, 
much  less  deeds  of  valor,  would  come  up  to,  or  that  could  in 
any  way  compare  with,  that  of  the  army  of  New  Mexico. 

By  night  and  by  day  we  were  beset  with  an  enemy  from  all 
sides  and  all  around,  and  we  knew  no  rest  day  or  night.  We 
were  constantly  on  duty  and  on  guard.  Our  rations  were  scant 
and  our  clothing  was  yet  more  so.  Consider  the  condition, 
the  clime  from  whence  we  came  and  the  country  in  which  we 
were  wintering,  and  an  idea  may  be  formed  of  our  great 
suffering  from  oold. 

When  it  came  to  the  actions  and  the  deeds  on  the  battle- 
field, we  met  an  enemy  with  all  the  improvements  in  warfare, 
as  well  as  with  the  bow  and  arrow  and  the  spear,  and  hand-to- 
hand  conflicts  were  more  frequent  than  in  any  other  battles 
of  the  Confederacy.  The  Eastern  armies  had  their  graphic 
correspondents,  grafted  and  gifted  liars,  who  magnified  mole- 
hills into  mountains  and  often  made  a  ten-man  skirmish  a  great 
and  bloody  battle,  where  no  one  had  been  touched. 

We  went  to  our  homes,  those  of  us  who  had  them,  to 
recuperate,  remount  and  to  rendezvous  at  different  points  in 
different  parts  of  the  State.  The  Confederate  Congress  had 
passed  the  Conscription  Act,  which  took  all  from  the  cradle  to 
the  grave,  sixteen  to  sixty,  unless  he  owned  twenty  negroes  or 
five  hundred  head  of  stock,  and  if  he  owned  these  and  had 
been  fool  enough  to  guarantee,  he  could  get  a  discharge  from 
the  army  and  go  home  and  play  gentleman.  Many  a  fond 
mother  but  .more  dear  fathers  deeded  their  sons  the  required 
number  of  negroes  or  five  hundred  head  of  cattle  that  they 
might  be  kept  out  of  the  army  or  be  gotten  out  of  it  if  they 
were  in.  This  was  the  first  blow  the  cause  received.  It  made 
it  a  rich  man's  war  and  a  poor  man's  fight  and  came  very  near 


72  SIBLEY'S  RETREAT  FROM  SANTA  FE. 

being  the  cause  of  the  disbanding  of  the  army  through  mutiny. 
Large  bounties  were  offered  for  free  enlistment,  but  the  money 
was  as  near  worthless  as  cracked  marbles  would  be  to  a  school- 
boy. 

I  saw  at  the  battle  of  Bissland  in  Louisiana  fifteen  hundred 
conscripts  who  had  been  armed  with  newly  imported — via 
Mexico — English  Enfield  rifles,  throw  their  rifles  over  the 
entrenchment  and  then  jump  over  themselves.  It  boots  noth- 
ing to  say  that  they  were  Louisiana  Creoles,  for  it  was  only 
in  other  directions  that  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  of 
full-blooded  natives  to  the  soil  did  practically  the  same  thing 
and  for  why  the  cause  was  lost  without  one  single  stipulation, 
consideration  or  honor  given  to  the  bearers  of  its  banners 
except  as  that  voluntarily  given  by  General  Grant  at  Appo- 
mattox  Court  House,  which  was  in  my  opinion  the  most  noble, 
generous,  greatest,  grandest,  bravest  and  chivalrous  act  ever 
jdone  by  one  conqueror  to  the  defeated  and  vanquished.  And 
when  methinks  of  how  humiliating  it  must  have  been  to  that 
great,  good  and  noble  Robert  E.  Lee  and  those  who  stood 
beside  him  on  the  memorable  day,  my  heart  all  but  weeps. 

The  greatest  officers  and  statesmen  of  the  Confederacy  were 
those  whose  voices  and  counsels  were  never  heard  or  heeded. 
They  were  the  ones  who  were  retired  to  the  rear  or  put  off 
in  obscure  places  of  command,  and  others  like  Lovell  and 
Duncan  and  Pemberton  were  put  in  their  places,  that  brought 
the  people  of  the  South  its  greatest  disgrace. 

One  of  the  greatest  difficulties  of  the  people  of  the  South 
was  that  they  were  too  much  disposed  to  be  man  worshipers, 
and  from  listening  to  the  blatant  demagogues  they  were  led 
in  the  wrong  direction  from  start  to  finsh.  They  were  taught 
by  these  worthies  to  place  confidence  and  trust  in  men  who, 
had  they  as  much  patriotism  as  they  had  selfishness,  might 
have  accomplished  something  worthy  of  the  people  over  whom 
they  forced  themselves  in  command. 


SIBLEY'S  RETREAT  FROM  SANTA  FE.  73 

The  reason  that  about  this  time  I  received  special  prefer- 
ment and  advancement  and  particular  notice  came  from  the  fact 
that  there  were  but  few  young  men  who  had  the  ability  to 
cover  ground  as  fast  or  who  had  the  brains  to  provide  against 
difficulties,  and  for  why  I  was  put  on  the  Secret  Service.  I 
was  neither  a  spy  nor  a  detective,  but  a  bearer  of  dispatches, 
and  it  often  amused  me  to  see  haw  little  my  immediate  officers 
and  assocates  knew  what  I  was  doing. 

After  the  fall  of  Vicksburg,  at  Port  Hudson,  I  made  many 
trips  between  Richmond,  Virginia,  and  the  Trans-Mississippi 
Department,  bearing  dispatches,  more  often  committed  to 
memory  before  I  started  and  rewritten  by  me  in  the  presence 
of  the  commanding  General,  than  I  ever  delivered  written  out 
by  the  Secretary  of  War.  I  crossed  the  Mississippi  River  a 
great  number  of  times  and  seldom  but  that  it  was  done  by  tak- 
ing my  life  in  my  own  hands.  Once  I  came  to  Rodney,  Mis- 
sissippi, when  I  was  the  bearer  of  one  of  the  most  important 
dispatches  that  ever  was  sent  from  Richmond  to  the  command- 
ing General,  which  must  be  delivered — the  sooner  the  better. 
My  cottonwood  log  was  sunk  in  Cole's  Creek,  near  Rodney, 
Mississippi.  I  saw  a  negro  in  the  road  ahead  of  me.  I  hailed 
him.  He  reluctantly  came  to.  I  said  to  him : 

"My  good  man,  do  you  know  whether  there  are  any  Con- 
federates down  here  at  Rodney  or  not  ?"  trying  to  convey  to 
him  that  I  was  one  of  the  other  fellows.  He  looked  square  at 
me  and  said : 

"No,  dars  no  Confederates  down  dar,  but  dar  was  a  lot  of 
Yankees  dar  yesterday  and  dey  interested  a  man  about  like  you 
and  I  believe  dat  if  youse  goes  down  dar  dey  will  interest 
youse." 

The  old  darkey  could  give  me  no  further  information,  so 
I  poled  on. 

I  found  the  town  clear  of  any  Federals  and  no  gunboats  in 
sight.  An  old  mulatto  was  sitting  in  a  boat  fishing,  half  asleep 


74  SIBLEY  S  RETREAT  FROM  SANTA  FE. 

and  the  other  half  no  more  awake.  I  always  went  well  armed. 
I  had  two  small  two-inch  derringers  in  my  battery  in  those 
days.  I  sprang  into  the  boat  and  the  sound  of  the  cocking  of 
those  pistols  woke  Sambo.  I  pointed  to  the  other  side  of  the 
river  and  held  my  batteries  down  on  his  head.  Yale  or  no 
other  college  team  ever  turned  out  any  men  or  set  of  men  equal 
to  this  very  frightened  darky  for  rowing,  and  I  am  sure  that 
I  never  crossed  the  Mississippi  River  so  quickly  before.  I 
landed  safely  on  the  other  side.  That  I  might  cover  my  tracks 
well  I  gave  the  nigger  a  silver  dollar  and  a  silver  half  dollar. 
His  eyes  shown  like  fresh  casting  plates  and  between  thanking 
me  and  saying,  "Massa,  Massa,  I  kin  do  it  agin  if  youse  will." 
I  made  a  fast  friend  there  but  for  whose  signaling  I  would 
have  been  captured  by  a  party  of  Wort  Adams'  Mississippi  Con- 
federate Cavalry,  who  bore  the  same  relation  to  the  Confed- 
erate army  that  Quantrell  of  Missouri  did,  and  who  was  both 
hawk  and  bussard  taken  dead  or  alive,  and  no  more  sure  the 
Grey  than  the  Blue. 

These  Mississippians  were  of  the  best  families  of  the  State, 
rich  descendants  of  that  class  of  people  who  were  kinged  over 
by  the  world-noted  robber  and  murderer,  John  A.  Murrill,  who 
said  that  when  he  "robbed  a  man  he  killed  him,  because  dead 
men  tell  no  tales."  There  are  a  great  number  of  great  people 
in  Mississippi,  and  there  are  good  ones  among  them,  but  of 
all  fighting  machines  that  ever  walked  commend  me  to  a  Mis- 
sissippian  and  a  gun-armed  Apache  Indian. 

If  I  were  writing  a  book  to  make  myself  popular  with  all 
the  people,  regardless  of  the  truth,  instead  of  writing  a  book  to 
tell  the  truth,  I  would  hedge  more  than  I  have  or  ever  would 
or  ever  will.  A  lion  was  looking  at  a  great  oil  painting  where 
a,n  artist  had  painted  a  dead  lion  with  a  huntsman  standing 
over  him  resting  on  his  gun,  and  the  lion  was  growling.  When 
he  was  asked  by  the  painter  what  he  was  growling  at,  and  he 
said: 


SIBLEY'S  RETREAT  FROM  SANTA  FE.  75 

"If  it  had  been  the  lion  painting  the  picture  it  would  have 
been  the  man  who  was  dead." 

If  a  Wort  Adams  Mississippi  cavalryman  was  telling  this 
instead  of  me,  he  would  make  it  appear  that  he  was  a  great 
and  valorous,  noble  and  generous  Confederate  cavalryman,  in- 
stead of  a  "Bushwhacker"  and  worse  than  a  highwayman. 


POLITICAL  AND  OTHERWISE. 


An  O.  S.  P.  divine,  who  had  preached  many  years  without 
any  accessories  to  his  church,  met  a  Methodist  preacher  who 
had  had  many  new  converts  every  quarter,  and  said :  "Brother, 
I  want  you  to  give  me  the  secret  of  your  success  in  preaching. 
You  know  that  I  have  studied  divinity  for  years  before  I  went 
to  preaching,  while  you  did  not  know  the  A-B-C's.  I  write 
out  my  sermons  and  make  them  most  perfect.  I  read  them 
off  to  my  congregation,  which  never  increases.  Now  tell  me 
how  I  may,  as  you  have  yours,  increase  my  congregation?" 

"I  can  tell  you  how  it  is,"  saH  the  Methodist  preacher. 
"You  sit  down  and  write  out  a  good  sermon,  full  of  the  true 
religion.  The  demon  who  sits  on  your  right  shoulder  whispers 
in  your  ear,  'Now,  don't  you  know  if  you,  read  that,  out  from 
your  pulpit  that  Miss  Wilson,  John  Doe,  Richard  Doe,  Bob 
Jones  and  Bill  Smith  will  never  come  to  hear  you  preach 
again  ?'  Whereupon  you  scratch  it  all  out  and  you  commence 
again  and  you  write  out  another  good  sentence  and  then  it  is 
that  the  devil  pops  up  on  the  other  side  and  says,  'How  fool- 
ish it  would  be  in  you  to  read  that  out  from  your  pulpit ;  why, 
all  the  business  men  in  town  would  quit  you  and  pay  no  more 
pew  rent,  and,  besides  that,  they  would  be  getting  a  new  min- 
ister,' whereupon  you  write  off  a  long  sentence  of  platitud- 
inous religious  propositions  and  possibilities  that  nobody  un- 
derstands or  cares  for,  for  it  has  nothing  in  it  understand- 
able ;  and  then  it  is  that  the  devil  pats  you  on  top  of  your  head 
and  says,  'That's  the  sort  of  stuff  to  feed  them  on.  That's 
sense.  You  need  have  no  fear  about  holding  your  job.'  Now, 
my  dear  Christian  brother,  when  I  get  up  to  preach,  the  devil 
himself  does  not  know  what  I  am  going  to  say." 

76 


POLITICAL  AND  OTHERWISE.  77 

When  I  sit  down  to  commence  on  a  chapter  I  am  like  the 
Methodist  preacher. 

I  might  live  to  be  a  very  old,  old  man  and  my  senses  may 
have  all  faded  and  passed  away,  yet  among  the  few  events  of 
my  life  I  believe  I  would  never  forget  my  arrival  in  San  An- 
tonio after  the  long  march  over  the  great  Texas  desert,  Rio 
Grande  River  valley  sands,  and  hill  climbing,  on  that  long 
and  wearisome  march  of  near  eighteen  hundred  miles.  More 
barefoot  than  shod,  more  naked  than  clothed,  with  blood  dried 
up,  muscles  contracted  and  flesh  shriveled,  and  there  were  none 
to  meet  me  there,  yet  I  in  common  with  my  comrades  was 
made  happy  by  and  from  receiving  all  the  corn-meal,  salt,  half 
ration  of  rancid  bacon  and  all  the  green  beef  we  wanted. 
There  was  no  clothing  in  the  Quartermaster's  Department  and 
there  was  no  store  in  all  San  Antonio  that  had  anything  in  it 
but  old  remnants  and  they  had  three  prices  in  specie  of  five  to 
ten  in  such  currency  as  we  might  have  received  for  our  services 
under  a  government  which  was  run  by  a  set  of  men  who  cared 
as  much,  for  the  common  soldiers  as  an  ordinary  huntsman 
would  care  for  his  hounds. 

We  had  never  received  a  cent  of  pay  and  there  had  been 
no  provision  made  to  pay  us  upon  our  return  to  San  Antonio, 
where  we  were  comforted  with  an  order  to  proceed  to  our  re- 
spective homes  and  remount  ourselves  with  horses  that  would 
be  acceptable  to  the  service,  re-arm  ourselves  and  re-clothe  our- 
selves and  after  sixty  days  from  date  rendezvous  at  different 
points  given,  with  no  such  expression  as  "if  you  please." 

Notwithstanding  all  this,  we  were  called  upon  and  expected 
to  admire,  cherish  and  love  all,  from  the  latest  appointed  lance 
corporal  up  to  Jeff  Davis  himself.  And  a  whole  lot  of  them 
did,  I  do  believe,  and  a  lot  of  them  who  didn't  lived  to  forget 
it  and  worship  the  rod  and  the  handlers  of  the  rod  which  smote 
them.  It  is  a  fact,  and  I  challenge  any  living  mortal  to  dis- 
pute it,  contradict  it  or  prove  anything  to  the  contrary,  that 


78  POLITICAL  AND  OTHERWISE. 

never  on  the  face  of  God's  green  earth  was  a  body  of  men 
called  soldiers,  fighting  for  a  cause  esteemed  by  large  num- 
bers of  'them  as  religiously  just,  who  were  treated  as  cruelly, 
as  meanly,  as  ungratefully  and  as  unchristianlike  as  were  the 
Confederate  soldiers,  and  this  applies  to  the  armies  from  the 
Potomac  to  the  farthest  West,  that  of  New  Mexico. 

My  reader  may  think  that  I  am  radical,  but  he  would  not  if 
he  had  tasted  and  drank  of  the  bitter  dregs  of  that  damnable 
and  most  bitter  cup.  Had  the  Confederate  army  been  prop- 
erly officered  and  supported  by  a  proper,  generous  and  brave 
government,  no  army  on  earth  could  have  conquered,  it.  The 
older  I  grow,  as  it  surely  is  with  you,  my  dear  reader,  the  more 
of  a  fatalist  I  become,  and  when  methinks  of  the  four  years' 
service  I  put  in,  the  hardest  that  any  man  ever  lived  through, 
in  a  good  old  democratic  hard-time  war,  I  can  but  think  that 
it  was  my  fate  and  is  made  a  decree  of  the  powers  that  be  be- 
yond the  powers  of  man  that  it  should  be  as  it  turned  out  to 
be,  and  that  the  ruling  spirits  had  -been  made  mad  unto  de- 
struction. 

Ask  me  why  I  thus  think?  My  reply  will  be,  "Turn  back 
fifty  years  and  see  what  the  South  was  and  see  what  the  negro 
was  and  see  what  the  poor  people  of  the  South  were,  and  see 
what  the  artisan  and  the  merchant  were,  and  forget  not  the 
tiller  of  the  soil ;  and  then  go,  travel  over  the  South  today,  from 
east  to  west  and  from  north  to  south,  as  I  have  been  doing  in 
the  last  few  years  and  months,  solely  to  see  the  people  and  how 
they  are,  and  compare  their  condition  with  what  it  was,  rich 
and  poor,  white  and  black  alike,  and  then  place  yourself  in  my 
fix,  having,  from  good  luck  possibly  more  than  from  good 
chance  or  management,  acquired  a  competency  of  worldly 
wealth — not  in  the  South,  however — and  then,  not  once  a  day, 
nay,  not  five  times  a  day  for  many  days  in  succession,  respond 
to  the  rap  and  call  to  your  door  of  a  feeble  and  tottering  old, 
old  man  who  tells  you  that  he  was  a  Confederate  soldier — who 


POLITICAL  AND  OTHERWISE.  79 

tells  you  that  he  had  suffered  for  something  to  eat  for  many 
days,  and  whose  appearance  confirms  what  he  says ;  and  then, 
if  you  have  a  heart  and  only  a  crust  and  you  could  refuse,  you 
have  no  soul  that  would  fit  you  for  anything  better  in  your 
old  age  than  the  soldier  of  the  "Lost  Cause"  received  in  his 
old  age. 

I  have  been  in  what  they  term  Soldiers'  Homes  in  other 
States  than  the  one  whose  banners  I  first  bore,  whose  inmates 
have  begged  of  me  to  take  them  out  of  those  worse  than  ac- 
cursed prison  pens.  Reader,  if  you  will  listen  to  the  accursed, 
lying  hypocrite,  sycophant,  place-hunting,  office-holding,  crib- 
fed,  fat,  sleek  politician,  as  did,  as  would  my  compeers  in  1860 
and  thereabout,  you  may  be  made  to  believe  that  these  old 
soldiers  in  these  so-called  Southern  "Homes"  have  no  wants 
but  that  are  bountifully  provided  for;  but  go  thou  and  see  for 
thyself  that  you  may  ever  afterward  hate  a  lying  politician, 
especially  if  he  be  of  that  tribe  that  only  brought  your  country 
ruin,  misery,  desolation,  destruction  and  all  else  but  peace, 
comfort  and  happiness  and  all  to  the  contrary  of  good  govern- 
ment. 

The  condition  of  affairs  in  the  South  are  such  that  no  in- 
telligent man — much  less  a  fool  who  only  gets  his  ideas  from 
reading  over  some  prejudiced  writings — can  properly  compre- 
hend until  he  shall  have  gone  there  and  seen  for  himself,  the 
negro  who  is  in  a  much  worse  condition  than  he  was  in  the 
days  of  slavery — now  don't  say  that  I  am  an  old  pro-slavery 
man  who  is  prejudiced  against  the  negro,  for  you  would  be 
telling  yourself  a  lie — while  the  poor  white  man  of  today  is  so 
much  worse  off  than  he  was  fifty  years  ago  that  the  difference 
cannot  be  comprehended  in  other  words  than  it  is  "incompre- 
hensible" to  him  or  his  visitor. 

Compare  any  condition  of  affairs  in  the  South  today  with 
those  of  fifty  years  ago,  and  it  will  be  like  comparing  the  fruit- 
ful vineyards  and  gardens  that  were  and  that  now  is  a  lava 


8o  POLITICAL  AND  OTHERWISE. 

bed  from  great  volcanic  eruptions.  Then  say  to  yourself,  as 
I  can,  "Had  the  advice  and  the  counsel  of  the  South's  great 
patriots  and  statesmen  been  heeded  and  listened  to  instead  of 
that  of  the  blackened  demagogues,  where  might  not  the  South 
today  be,  when  we  look  at  the  wonderful,  indescribable  ad- 
vancement of  all  human  industries  and  interests  of  the  North- 
ern and  Western  States  of  the  Union?"  Great  statesmen,  like 
Alexander  H.  Stevens  of  Georgia,  Sam  Houston  of  Texas  and 
Bell  of  Tennessee,  were  relegated  to  the  rear  by  the  howling, 
hissing,  roaring,  bellowing  demagogues,  whom  the  gods  had 
first  made  mad  for  destruction. 

It  is  my  belief  that  the  man  has  not  yet  been  born  who  may 
suggest  any  possible  solution  of  the  negro  question  in  the 
South,  and  unborn  millions,  even  for  centuries  hence,  may  find 
the  question  as  perplexing  and  insolvable  as  it  is  to  the  best 
thing,  good  desiring  Christian  patriots,  statesmen  and  sages 
of  today. 

Were  it  possible  to  enthrone  and  crown  cotton  king  again 
— which  can  never  be — the  negro  question  would  only  become 
more  and  more  perplexing.  One  of  the  great  difficulties  in  the 
South  is  that — do  not  say  that  this  is  a  contradiction — the 
great  majority  of  the  people  are  a  noble,  generous,  open- 
hearted,  free  and  confiding  people,  who  from  being  so  are  easily 
led,  it  would  seem  as  though  they  actually  prayed  for  a  leader 
— a  king,  as  it  were — and  the  more  blatant,  big-mouthed,  the 
sycophant,  hypocrite,  political  demagogue  who  comes  along, 
the  more  these  people  swear  by  him.  It  is  their  nature  to  be 
thus  and,  "as  it  was  in  the  beginning,  is  now  and  ever  shall 
be,  world  without  end,"  as  far  as  the  better  element  in  the 
South  is  concerned. 

I  must  now  tell,  to  illustrate  this  last  proposition,  of  a  slick, 
cunning  advertising  villain — I  will  not  give  his  name  or  place  of 
residence,  but  will  come  as  near  telling  all  the  points  as  public 
policy  will  permit.  It  will,  however,  be  recognized  by  tens 


POLITICAL  AND  OTHERWISE.  8l 

of  thousands  of  my  Southern  readers,  for  I  calculate  that  this 
volume  will  be  read  by  more  people  of  the  South  than  any  other 
book  that  has  ever  been  written,  not  excepting  the  Bible  and 
Testament  and  Webster's  Elementary  Spelling  Book,  and  I 
also  calculate  that  from  its  being  read  great  good  is  going  to 
come  to  the  reader  in  all  cases  where  the  reader  has  sense 
enough  to  keep  his  hands  from  being  used  as  a  catspaw,  as 
the  monkey  did  the  cat  in  the  chestnut  deal. 

This  cunning,  slick,  plausible,  two-faced,  stem-winding 
Yankee  advertised  in  all  of  the  Southern  papers  and  papers  that 
were  circulated  down  South.  It  was  only  when  he  made  a 
mistake  that  his  advertisement  was  found  in  any  paper  pub- 
lished north  of  the  Ohio  River,  except  the  paper  that  had  cir- 
culated down  South,  as  did  the  New  York  Day  Book,  the  great 
secessionist  Democratic  paper  before  the  war,  Van  Avery, 
Whorton  &  Co.,  every  one  of  whom  were  cunning  Yankees 
playing  on  the  Southern  people's  prejudices  for  so  much — one 
dollar  and  fifty  cents  per  year. 

His  advertisement  was  short,  pointed  and  sweet  and  in 
substance  said  that  he  was  the  inventor,  discoverer,  owner,  and 
absolute  possessor  of  a  divining  rod,  a  magnetized-electro- 
poised  -  ozone  -  fluted  -pole-twisting-guaranteed-to-find-buried- 
silver  and  gold,  jewels,  etc.,  secreted  by  anybody,  anywhere. 
Particulars  furnished  upon  application. 

Half  of  the  white  people  of  the  South  believed  that  their 
daddies  or  their  mammies  or  their  uncles  or  their  aunts  each 
buried  more  of  the  valuable  coins  of  the  realm  and  diamond 
diadems  than  a  fat  government  mule  could  pack.  Nine  out  of 
every  ten  negroes  believed  that  their  old  massa  had  more  than 
their  price  ($1,000)  hid  away  in  more  places  than  one  on  the 
old  plantation.  Shortly  after  this  advertisement  appeared 
there  was  an  unheard  of  and  unusual  demand  upon  the  postof-' 
fice  in  Washington  for  stamps,  for  just  about  nearly  everybody 
down  South  wrote  to  this  aforesaid  stem-winding  Yankee,  in- 


82  POLITICAL  AND  OTHERWISE. 

closing  the  required  "ten  cents  for  further  information."  The 
further  information  consisted  of  a  lithographed  letter,  that  of 
itself  would  deceive  the  devil  that  wasn't  up  to  Yankee  tricks 
in  letter  writing,  which  was  published  by  the  ton  and  that 
netted  each  one  eight  and  three- fourths  cents  apiece. 

It  went  on  to  state  that  the  writer  was  advised  that  the 
planters  in  your  section  were  very  wealthy  and  had  been  in  the 
habit  of  burying  large  sums  of  money  long  before  the  war  com- 
menced, and  after  the  war  buried  all  they  had  and  could  lay 
hands  on,  and  that,  knowing  what  he  did,  it  would  not  be  right 
for  him  to  part  with  his  valuable  information  without  being 
assured  and  secured  by  a  liberal  security  of  say  one-third  of 
all  that  was  discovered  by  reason  of  his  rods,  dips  and  needles, 
and  that  upon  your  signing  the  inclosed  bond  with  two  secur- 
ity names  attached  thereto  and  sending  with  it  ten  dollars,  you 
would  be  sent  a  silver  finding  needle,  conditioned  upon  receiv- 
ing a  reply  to  this  within  fifteen  days'  time,  for,  as  you  know, 
we  do  not  want  too  many  operating  on  the  same  ground. 
Don't  buy  postoffice  orders  or  checks,  but  send  remittances  in 
registered  letters,  and  above  all  things  don't  give  yourself  away 
to  the  postmaster  or  the  local  bankers. 

The  money  came,  and  why  should  it  not?  And  the  little 
steel  ring  with  the  flap-doodle  magnetized  needle  attachment 
was  sent  in  a  little  box  about  the  size  that  my  old  dad  made 
me  use  in  putting  up  one  dozen  of  his  old  calomel,  ipecac, 
rhubarb  and  jalap — equal  portions — anti-bilious  compound, 
double-acting,  never-to-be-forgotten  cathartic  pills,  guaranteed 
to  work  both  ways. 

Upon  receiving  this  letter  our  Southern  cracker  friend  im- 
mediately proceeded  to  crawl  around  in  the  dark  night  close 
up  to  his  neighbors'  lots,  barns,  houses  and  rose  bushes,  and  not 
infrequently  ran  up  against  another  man  on  the  same  mission, 
and  possibly  a  nigger  or  two,  and  perhaps  more  niggers  bit 
at  this  swindle  than  whites. 


POLITICAL  AND  OTHERWISE.  83 

Ten  days,  two  weeks  or  a  month  would  elapse,  and  the  re- 
ceiver would  receive  a  second  epistle,  which  I  will  call  stem- 
winder  number  two.  It  went  on  to  say  that  "I  took  you  to  be 
an  honest  man ;  I  received  your  bond  in  good  faith ;  the  money 
you  sent  me  was  nothing  as  compared  with,  what  my  portion 
should  have  been.  Perhaps  you  think  you  are  depriving  me  of 
my  just,  legal  and  bonded  rights,  but  unless  I  hear  from  you  at 
an  early  date  you  will  be  a  very  much  disappointed  community 
or  your  part  of  it  will  be." 

With  fear  and  trembling  the  "gull"  answered  that  the  ma- 
chine did  not  work,  that  he  had  spent  five  or  ten  or  twenty 
nights  'midst  storms  and  rains  and  had  not  been  able  to  locate 
anything,  and  perhaps  he  put  in  that  he  knew  that  there  were 
lots  of  it  buried  around  in  the  very  ground  he  had  been  over. 

Soon  the  "gull"  received  stem-winder  number  three,  which 
informed  him  that  it  was  a  silver  finder  that  he  had  received, 
but  that  what  he  needed  now  was  a  combined  gold  and  silver 
finder,  the  price. of  which  was  fifty  dollars,  and  that  he  would 
take  back  the  ten-dollar  machine,  making  forty  dollars  for  the 
new,  and  which,  "now  that  I  am  thoroughly  convinced  that  you 
are  an  honest  man,  I  will  divide  into  payments.  Twenty  dol- 
lars cash  and  twenty  dollars  in  sixty  days,  by  which  time  no 
doubt  you  will  be  in  possession  of  wealth  enough  to  ever  aft- 
erward keep  the  wolf  from  the  door  and  help  me  to  keep  the 
one  from  mine." 

This  scarcely  ever  failed  to  draw  twenty  dollars,  in  receipt 
for  which  the  "gull'  heard  no  more  from  this  man  from  this 
place,  but  would  soon  afterward  hear  from  him  a  long  distance 
from  that  spot,  up  in  Canada,  telling  him  that  a  friend  of  his, 
"an  old,  true  and  trusted  friend  of  yours,  whom  I  will  not  name 
because  of  reasons  that  will  present  themselves  to  you,  gave  me 
your  name  as  a  proper,  honest,  discreet  man  to  this  address. 

"Recently  a  pal  of  mine  was  nipped  by  the  United  States 
Government  that  would  have  given  him  half  a  million  dollars 


84  POLITICAL  AND  OTHERWISE. 

for  the  plates  he  had  used  in  putting  out  fac-simile  ten,  twenty 
and  fifty  dollar  bills,  or  which  the  United  States  Government 
had  redeemed  many  million  dollars'  worth.  I  have  those 
plates  with  me  here  in  this  'way-off  backwoods  country,  which 
you  will  see  by  reference  to  the  proper  map  is  fifty  miles  from 
any  railroad,"  etc.,  etc.,  and  a  whole  lot  more  of  just  such,  stuff. 

"I  will  sell  you  in  lots  of  one  thousand  for  so  much,  but 
twenty  thousand  for  only  a  quarter  more,  and  fifty  thousand 
for  just  double,  and  will  send  it  to  you,  express  paid,  at  the 
second  express  office  from  where  you  live"- -very  particu- 
lar he. 

It  may  be  that  seven  out  of  ten  who  got  the  silver  and  then 
afterward  the  gold  needle  sent  fifty  dollars  to  this  same  indi- 
vidual under  another  na.me  for  green  goods. 

These  were  two — by  one  man — of  the  worst  swindles  that 
were  ever  perpetrated  on  the  people  of  the  South,  and  I  was 
told  by  one  man  whom  I  have  never  found  reason  to  doubt,  that 
between  the  two  schemes  he  cleared  up  more  than  eight  mil- 
lion dollars  inside  of  two  years.  Somewhat  like  the  Los  An- 
geles, California,  oil  scheme  that  cleared  up  eleven  millions 
inside  of  twelve  months,  and  the  Beaumont,  Texas,  oil  schemes 
that  cleared  up  one-half  as  much,  saying  nothing  of  the  clear- 
ances made  by  the  biggest  Hogg  in  Texas. 

All  sorts  of  get-rich-quick  schemes  and  political  knavery 
tricks  seemed  to  take  with  the  people  of  the  South,  as  with  no 
other  people  on  the  face  of  the  globe.  As  an  illustration  of 
the  great  worth  and  character  of  the  people  of  the  South  I  will 
state  that  it  is  only  necessary  to  travel  around  through  the 
Northwest  States  and  in  all  of  the  Northern  cities,  where  you 
will  find  that  the  Southern  boy,  the  Southern  man  has  been 
given  preference  over  all  other  boys  and  men  in  all  and  in 
every  possible  avocation  and  calling  requiring  skill  as  well  as 
indefatigable  energy  and  unimpeachable  honesty,  and  never 
have  I  known  of  a  Yankee  who  married  down  South  and 


POLITICAL  AND  OTHERWISE.  85 

brought  his  bride  North  but  that  he  became  a  greater  man  than 
there  had  ever  been  any  hopes  of  his  becoming  before,  and 
she  became  respected  of  and  by  all. 

But  let  a  Yankee  go  down  South  and  he  is  only  a  Yankee 
and  never  will  be  anything  else  as  long  as  he  lives,  though  his 
children  may  amount  to  something. 

Did  I  hear  you  say,  reader,  that  I  am  away  off  from  my 
subject?  Read  the  first  paragraph  of  this  chapter*  and  get 
right  yourself;  box  your  compass  again  and  don't  know  what 
to  expect. 

I  went  from  San  Antonio  further  east,  and  from  having 
a  good  reputation  before  I  went  west,  I  was  refitted  with  a 
good  horse  and  saddle  and  accouterments  on  a  transfer  of  my 
pay  account,  twenty-five  per  cent  to  be  added  if  we  were  not 
paid  off  in  six  months. 

I  thought  about  a  year  after  this,  when  down  on  Bayou 
Lafourche  in  Louisiana,  how  much  easier  I  could  have  got  a 
horse  and  an  outfit  had  I  belonged  to  the  "craft,"  as  they  called 
themselves,  and  this  was  the  way  of  it. 

I  with  four  or  five  others  were  picketing  on  our  side  of  the 
bayou,  no  wider  than  an  ordinary  Arkansas  road,  when  we 
espied  a  greater  number  of  Yankees  on  the  other  side,  just 
about  dusk.  When  darkness  came  on  a  man  in  my  party  hol- 
lered out : 

"From  whence  do  you  come?" 

"From  a  camp  of  horse  thieves  on  the  Rio  Grande." 

"What  came  you  here  to  do?" 

"To  learn  how  to  improve  myself  in  horse  thieving." 

"Then  you  are  a  horse  thief,  I  presume?" 

"I  am  so  taken  and  accepted  by  all  the  'craft'  on  the  Rio 
Grande." 

"Horse  Thief,  can  you  advance  and  give  the  proper  sign 
and  hailing  words  ?" 

"Can  you  respond?" 


86  POLITICAL  AND  OTHERWISE. 

"Yes." 

"Give  you." 

"Coffee!" 

"Tobacco!" 

After  this  response  our  man  started  out  down  the  bayou, 
and  the  Yankee  started  out,  and  for  two  plugs  of  tobacco  we 
got  about  five  pounds  of  parched  coffee,  and  such  a  coffee 
drinking  time  as  we  had !  It  was  like  our  eating  corn  dodgers 
on  the  retreat. 

It  was  after  the  close  of  the  war  that  I  was  given  to  un- 
derstand all  this  horse  thieving  dialogue.  Since  then  I  don't 
believe  I  would  be  found  afoot  in  any  country. 

My  great  love,  admiration  and  respect  for  the  Southern 
people,  while  not  contending  for  the  old  times  and  conditions 
of  its  "institutions,"  as  slavery  was  considered,  always  caused 
me  to  hate  its  enemies,  and  it  was  they  who  lived  within  its 
confines  and  borders  that  I  the  most  hated  of  all,  and  no  man 
living  has  ever  accused  me  of  not  being  "true  to  Paul." 
Though  offered  great  rewards,  I  never  turned  "scallawag"  nor 
ever  in  any  way  went  back  on  my  report,  while  others  who  pro- 
fessed great  Southern  loyalty  were  all  original  secessionists, 
and  who  promised  to  do  up  anywhere  from  five  to  ten  Yankees 
any  morning  before  reveille  was  sounded,  turned  traitor, 
traitor  to  every  principle  of  manhood,  and  for  the  sake  of  of- 
fice or  reward  became  the  most  loathsome  and  detestable  of  all 
politicians,  in  my  estamation,  scallaivags. 

It  was  the  like  of  them;  who  brought  on  the  Confederacy 
its  first  misfortunes,  and  from  thence  on  caused  them  to  in- 
crease, and  finally  encompassed  its  downfall  without  any  con- 
ditions or  privileges,  rents  or  remunerations  excepting  as  were 
voluntarily  given  by  General  U.  S.  Grant  at  Appomattox. 

Had  statesmen  and  patriots  been  at  the  helm,  even  after 
some  of  our  gravest  and  greatest  disasters  had  befallen  us, 
terms  and  conditions  could  have  been  negotiated  and  brought 


POLITICAL  AND  OTHERWISE.  87 

about  that  would  have  left  the  people  of  the  South  a  free  peo- 
ple, not  beggars,  and  would. have  placed  the  negro  question  at 
rest  forever. 

And  the  South  today,  instead  of  being  solid  Democratic, 
would  have  been  in  the  solid  line  of  advancement  and  improve- 
ment. 


CAMPAIGNING  IN  LOUISIANA. 


A  young  lawyer,  fresh  from  college  and  with  a  new  license 
to  practice,  was  sent  by  his  old  partner,  who  had  examined  the 
jury  and  fixed  it  just  right  for  an  important  criminal  case,  to 
make  the  opening  speech,  which  he  did  with  a  great  amount  of 
flowery  eloquence  and  the  large  use  of  legal  expressions  and 
big  words  in  general.  The  old  lawyer  saw  that  his  case  was 
lost  and  beyond  retrieve.  After  he  had  done  his  best  in  his 
second  speech  he  told  the  young  man  that  the  case  was  lost 
because  of  his  speech.  "Instead  of  using  common,  plain, 
everyday,  good,  solid,  sensible  English  that  every  man  of  that 
jury,  that  I  had  picked,  could  understand,  you  shot  over  their 
heads  with  your  big  words  and  expressions,  which  none  but 
the  judge  himself  understood." 

Ke  admonished  the  young  man  that  the  next  time  he  un- 
dertook to  make  a  speech  he  should  use  such  language  as  the 
most  ignorant  man  before  him  could  understand,  and  never 
again  use  big  words  and  technical  expressions  except  as  he  ad- 
dressed college  graduates. 

I  don't  believe  that  I  ever  lost  a  case  for  the  want  of  good 
plain  English,  or  from  not  being  understood  by  the  people 
whom  I  addressed.  I  am  not  writing  for  that  class  of  people 
who  want  dictionary  exercise — that  is  to  say,  who  want  words 
that  they  would  continually  have  to  refer  to  the  dictionary  for 
definitions.  I  believe  in  calling  a  spade  a  spade,  and  every 
other  implement  or  subject  which  I  handle  or  to  which  I  refer 
by  its  proper  and  everyday  common  name.  And  I  hope  that 
my  reader  will  not  consider  me  as  having  lived  a  life  of  labor 
in  trying  to  coin  long  sentences  of  long  words,  that  may  or 

88 


CAMPAIGNING  IN   LOUISIANA.  89 

might  mean  more  or  less,  just  as  the  reader  might  choose  to 
make  it. 

Had  my  early  life  been  spent  in  educational  institutions,  I 
might  be  able  to  make  a  large  volume  and  say  less  than  this 
volume  will  say  before  I  get  through  with  it,  and  yet  not  make 
the  volume  so  large  as  to  be  cumbersome. 

After  the  reassembling  orf  the  brigade  and  its  reorganiza- 
tion without  the  aid  of  a  paymaster,  and  only  a  quartermaster, 
who  issued  vouchers  to  people  in  payment  for  mules  and  horses 
and  wagons  and  such  like,  that  with  a  file  of  soldiers  he  took 
from  the  possessor  without  as  much  as  to  say  "Thank  you," 
we  were  ordered  to  southern  Louisiana  in  the  early  spring  of 
1863,  where  we  met  face  to  face  with  Banks'  army  below 
Franklin,  going  through  a  country  that  was  three-fourths 
marsh  and  one-eighth  lagoons,  bayous,  overflowing  creeks  and 
rivers.  I  can  here  truthfully  say  that  no  army  ever  inarched 
through  any  country  under  more  difficulties,  with  such  trials, 
tribulations  and  sufferings  as  we  did  in  going  through  south- 
eastern Texas  and  southwestern  Louisiana. 

We  rendezvoused  on  Bayou  Salle,  Louisiana,  near  Frank- 
lin, and  who  that  is  living  today  that  was  there  with  me  can 
think  of  our  boggy,  watery  camp^-ground  but  would  in  doing 
so  bring  on  rheumatic  pains  and  all  else  which  a  few  weeks  of 
such  life  is  guaranteed  to  produce  on  any  man  before  he  ar- 
rives at  the  age  of  fifty,  and  from  then  on,  all  sorts  of  suffer- 
ing. 

Our  horses  were  fed  on  half  rations  of  corn  and  shucks 
and  we  were  put  on  half  rations  of  corn-meal  and  pickled 
steers,  called  pickled  beef,  which  had  been  packed  the  previous 
winter  in  New  Iberia,  Louisiana,  rock  salt,  which  contained 
enough  saltpeter,  naturally  or  artificially  I  shall  never  be  able 
to  tell,  to  solidify  this  beef  that  after  boiling  it  two  or  three 
days  it  became  still  more  solidified.  The  saltpeter  gave  us 
all  sore  mouths  and  sore  tongues  and  sorry  souls,  but  a  greater 


9O  CAMPAIGNING  IN   LOUISIANA. 

love  and  a  stronger  hope  of  home  and  loved  ones  we  had  left 
behind  to  be  sent  down  here  in  this  land  of  alligators  and  other 
crawling  reptiles  and  winged  birds  called  mosquitoes.  We 
had  "water  all  around,  but  not  a  drop  to  drink,"  except  that  we 
had  green  Louisiana  rum,  made  of  sour  molasses,  warranted 
two  doses  to  make  a  man  fight  his  mother-in-law's  remem- 
brance. 

The  guns  that  we  had  were  of  all  sorts,  sizes  and  com- 
plexions, ages  and  conditions,  and  the  ammunition  we  received 
was  nearly  all  a  misfit.  Our  officers  from  the  captains  up 
were  quartered  in  the  planters'  mansions,  while  all  the  natives 
had  been  quartered  in  the  barns  and  sugar-houses,  while  we, 
poor  private  soldier,  trash  from  Texas,  were  sent  out  in  the 
swamps. 

After  a  stay  here  of  days  sufficient  to  have  placed  the  great 
majority  of  us  in  a  hospital,  only  that  we  had  no  hos- 
pital or  hospital  supplies,  we  received1  the  welcome  news 
that  the  Federal  army  under  General  Banks  had  crossed  at 
where  Morgan  City  now  stands  and  that  he  was  sending  his 
gunboats  and  marching  his  army  toward  where  we  afterward 
found  out  a  fort  had  been  built  on  Bayou  Boef,  on  Bissland's 
plantation,  mounted  with  nine  what  was  then  and  is  yet  known 
as  "Long  Toms"  (a  six-inch  smooth-bore  eighteen-foot  long 
cast-iron  cannon,  cast  when  Thomas  Jefferson  was  President 
of  the  United  States,  to  be  mounted  at  all  ports  of  entry  for 
home  protection),  that,  when  charged  with  forty  pounds  of 
powder  and  a  six-inch  cast-iron  ball  rammed  home  and  was 
fired  off,  one  could  hear  the  wabbling  of  the  ball  in  that  bore, 
and  death  was  the  doom  of  the  cannoneer  who  stood1  anywhere 
near  that  infernal  machine,  which  was  sure  to  jump  out  of 
its  trunnions,  especially  if  the  piece  was  in  the  least  depressed. 

From  the  fort  across  the  large  plantation  three-fourths  of 
a  mile  a  large  embankment  had  been  thrown  up,  behind  which 
three  or  four  thousand  Louisiana  natives  had  been  placed. 


CAMPAIGNING  IN    LOUISIANA.  QI 

They  had  been  armed  with  the  very  best  modern  man-killing 
guns,  English  Enfield  rifles,  newly  brought  across  the  country 
from  Mexico. 

The  Federal  boats  were  armed  with  thirty-two-pound  rifled 
steel-and-brass  field  pieces.  They  made  a  feint  on  the  fort, 
which  was  no  more  than  open  breastworks.  The  fort  was 
protected  by  the  Texas  cavalry,  whose  horses  were  a  mile  or 
two  in  the  rear.  Shot  and  shell  from  the  gunboats  went  over 
the  fort,  exploding  and  kicking  up  a  furious  noise  among  our 
horse  holders  and  our  Texas  mustang  ponies,  that  had  been 
somewhat  used  to  electric  storms  and  possibly  thunderbolts, 
but  kicked  and  otherwise  raised  thunder  among  themselves  at 
having  all  this  come  in  on  them  when  the  sun  was  shining: 

Our  "Long  Toms"  were  fired  and  the  Yankee  gunboats  re- 
tired. This  gave  us  a  chance  to  remount  our  pieces,  take  off 
the  dead  and  look  after  our  wounded,  caused  by  the  jumping 
of  our  guns  out  of  their  bearings. 

While  we  were  being  held  there  by  the  Federals  they  sent 
nine  thousand  infantry,  without  cavalry  or  artillery,  under 
General  Groiver,  on  transports  around  to  our  rear,  eighteen 
or  twenty  miles  off,  four  miles  west  and  north  of  Franklin, 
where  they  landed  in  very  good  order,  as  I  have  been  informed 
and  verily  believe,  at  Irish  bend.  They  had  only  four  miles  to 
march  to  reach  a  point  that  would  have  completely  cut  off  the 
Right  Reverend  General  Dick  Taylor's  army  and  captured 
everything  including  our  brigade  and  all  the  other  Texans  who 
were  there. 

Our  scouts — if  we  had  any,  and  if  not  our  Generals 
must  have  dreamed  it — became  wise  and  onto  this  move  in 
time  to  send  the  mounted  men  to  meet  and  repulse  it.  This 
was  done  by  an  early  morning  battle  with  five  pieces  of  ar- 
tillery and  three  thousand  dismounted  cavalrymen  on  our  side. 
The  Federals,  nine  thousand  strong,  had  driven  us  off  the 
field  and  had  captured  our  battery.  We  had  retreated  to  the 


92  CAMPAIGNING  IN    LOUISIANA. 

opposite  side  of  a  wood,  through  which  and  next  to  the  bayou 
a  wide  road  meandered. 

Colonel  Riley,  elsewhere  referred  to,  who  was  in  command, 
was  killed. early  in  the  action,  as  were  also  four  or  five  hun- 
dred other  men  who  had  come  through  the  swamps  from 
Texas.  The  Federals  were  marching  on  us  through  the  woods 
at  a  rapid  rate,  while  we  were  grouped  together  like  so  many 
badly  scared  boys,  looking  for  a  leader,  who>  finally  showed 
up  in  the  person  of  Major  Hamilton,  and  who  was  so  busy 
trying  to  light  his  pipe  while  his  horse  was  prancing  round  at 
a  furious  rate  that  he  did  not  recognize  that  he  was  the  com- 
mander of  the  situation.  I  always  shall  believe  that  he  was  as 
badly  scared  as  I  was. 

I  had  been  in  prison  in  my  day  and  calculated  upon  an- 
other term.  Coming  down  the  road  a  little  way  from  the 
group  of  men  I  saw,  by  peeping  around  a  clump  of  blackberry 
bushes,  the  Federals  limbering  up  our  field  battery  and  bring- 
ing the  horses  into  proper  line,  whereupon  I  screamed  so  loud 
that  my  voice  was  heard  by  every  Yankee  and  every  Confed- 
erate on  the  other  side:  "Clear  the  road  for  the  cavalry!" 
which  was  re-shouted  in  an  instant  by  the  twelve  or  fifteen  hun- 
dred men  near,  as  only  well-scared  men  can  shout. 

The  Yankees  knew  that  they  had  no  cavalry  and  had  been 
told  that  they  were  going  to-  face  the  terrific  and  terrible  New 
Mexico-Texan  Sibley  brigade  of  ferocious  Rough  Riders.  I 
heard  a  few  horns  toot  down  on  the  Yankee  side.  I  went  a 
little  farther  and  I  never  saw  men  running  so  in  all  my  life, 
forming  in  solid  squares  out  in  the  canefield.  I  was  afterward 
told  by  the  commander  that  he  thought  that  there  were  ten 
thousand  Texas  cavalrymen  coming  down  the  road. 

We  retook  our  battery  which  the  Yankees  had  so  kindly 
limbered  up  and  made  ready  for  use,  and  started  double-quick 
for  our  horses.  It  was  four  hours  or  more  before  the  Federal 


CAMPAIGNING  IN   LOUISIANA.  93 

commander  found  that  he  had  been  bamboozled,  fooled  and 
likewise  deceived,  and  commenced  the  forward  march. 

In  the  meantime  General  Taylor  and  our  other  long-headed 
and  wise  commanders  (?)  had  retreated  from  the  Bissland 
battle-field,  Fort  Bissland  on  the  bayou  referred  to  before,  and 
we  all  crossed  over  the  long  bridge  in  safety  and  planted  our 
field  batteries  on  the  opposite  side,  when  General  Grover  came 
down  with  his  boys  in  blue  and  General  Franklin  came  rush- 
ing up  with  his  flying  artillery  and  mounted  infantry  from 
Bissland.  Night  came  on  and  we  pulled  out  of  the  scene  to 
New  Iberia,  where  three  days  afterward  there  might  have  been 
a  battle  but  that  our  ammunition,  if  not  wet,  at  least  was  a 
little  moist,  and  we  started  for  the  rear ;  those  under  command 
toward  Alexandria  and  those  in  desperate  want  of  home  com- 
forts toward  Niblit's  Bluff,  Texas;  very  few  of  whom  ever 
afterward  heard  the  sound  of  their  own  reveille  toot-horns, 
much  less  Yankee  cannon  or  musketry. 

I  made  a  mistake  and  took  the  right-hand  road  instead 
of  the  left  one  leading  to  Texas,  and  was  a  few  days  after- 
ward made  a  prisoner  of  war  in  the  town  of  Washington, 
where  I  had  gone  to  a  hospital  unable  longer  to  go  farther. 

It  was  told  the  Federal  commander  that  I  was  a  man  of 
no  rank  but  possessed  of  wonderful  information.  He  sent 
for  me,  thinking  to  gain  thereby.  I  was  in  a  dying  condition, 
so  considered.  General  Banks  ordered  his  chief  surgeon  to 
come  to  me,  and  I  believe  that  my  life  was  saved  thereby. 
This  doctor  proved  to  be  the  father  of  the  Rev.  Mr.  Rogers, 
the  presiding  minister  of  the  O.  S.  P.  Church  at  Seguin, 
Texas,  to  which  my  father  belonged.  He  recognized  my 
name,  having  visited  my  folks.  To  him  and  to  General  Banks 
I  owe  all,  and  no  man  can  accuse  me  of  ever  being  ungrateful. 
I  met  them  both  after  the  war,  and  better  and  nobler  and  more 
Christian  men  I  never  had  the  pleasure  of  becoming  acquainted 
with.  The  commander  learned  nothing  from  me,  for  I  abso- 


94  CAMPAIGNING  IN   LOUISIANA. 

lutely  knew  as  little  as  General  Dick  Taylor  did  himself  or  any 
other  of  his  officers. 

Here  at  this  time  I  quit  the  Confederate  service  for  a  good 
long  season,  to  be  confined  in  the  Belleville  Iron  Works  in  Al- 
giers, opposite  New  Orleans,  with  a  mixed  crowd  of  Louisi- 
ana natives  and  Texans.  After  being  in  this  prison  a  month 
or  more  I  was  picked  out  as  one  of  twenty  of  the  most  con- 
spicuous, and  of  course  good  looking,  Confederates  who  were 
to  be  sent  to  the  Parish  Prison  in  New  Orleans  and  there  held 
in  solitary  confinement  as  hostages  for  the  safe  return  of  Cap- 
tain J.  L.  Dwight,  who  had  been  captured  while  acting  as  a 
spy  within  the  Confederate  lines  near  O'ppolassas. 

This  affair  was  settled  a  few  days  thereafter,  and  as  though 
we  had  not  seen  enough  of  the  dark  holes  of  that  damp 
dungeon  prison  we  were  chained  together  two  and  two,  my 
companion  being  the  noted  Louisiana  fighting  scout,  Bailey 
Vincent,  and  I  can  show  the  marks  of  that  handcuff  on  my 
left  wrist.  We  were  put  on  board  o>f  a  steamer  and  sent  to 
Ship  Island,  a  verdureless  sand  dune  near  the  mouth  of  the 
Mississippi  River,  where  we  were  huddled  into  close  quarters 
and  unshackled  and  fed  on  as  good  as  the  Federals  had,  and 
were  told  that  we  were  held  as  hostages  for  Major  Montgom- 
ery of  the  First  Texas  Federal  Cavalry,  who  had  been  cap- 
tured somewhere  down  near  Corpus  Christi  Bay,  and  who>, 
we  had  been  told,  had  been  cruelly  assassinated  by  the  Texans 
capturing  him.  He  had  lived  for  many  years  in  and,  if  I  mis- 
take not,  was  born  in  Texas.  Many  of  his  relatives,  all  of 
whom,  like  himself,  were  Union  men,  had  been  captured  and 
hung  in  their  efforts  to  leave  the  State  of  Texas,  by  Huff's 
regiment  of  Texas  murderers,  just  as  the  Committee  of  Public 
Safety  in  Fort  Bend  County  had  threatened  to  do  and  would 
have  done  with  me  had  they  have  gotten  on  a  big  drunk  the 
night  before  I  escaped,  and  of  which  I  have  told  elsewhere. 

The  order  came  for  our   transfer  back  to  Algiers,  and  I 


CAMPAIGNING  IN    LOUISIANA.  95 

never  did  know,  and  never  will,  whether  Major  Montgomery 
had  been  captured,  killed  or  returned. 

When  we  reached  the  prison  in  Algiers  we  were  welcomed 
by  our  old  comrades,  who  had  been  told  that  we  had  been 
deliberately  shot.  The  Louisianans  who  were  in  prison  with 
us  were  afraid  to  communicate  with  their  friends  and  rela- 
tives in  the  city  of  New  Orleans,  and  it  was  but  natural  they 
should  be  since  of  the  tales  that  were  told  of  the  monstrous 
cruelties  that  were  being  perpetrated  on  the  citizens  of  New 
Orleans  of  Confederate  sympathies,  and  especially  regarding 
the  treatment  the  fair  daughters  of  New  Orleans  and  the  most 
loved  ones  were  receiving  and  had  received  at  the  hands  of 
Old  Beast  Butler,  known  also  as  "Spoon  Butler,"  a  cock-eyed, 
bald-pated,  beetle-browed,  fox-faced,  lizard-chinned  mon- 
strosity, as  well  as  Northern  Democrat,  and  who  many  years 
after  this  New  Orleans  affair  was  seriously  discussed  by  the 
Solid  South  Democrats  as  the  possible  winning  candidate  at 
the  time  the  Democrats  nominated  a  yet  worse  old  devil,  of 
whom  I  will  have  a  page  or  more,  if  not  a  full  chapter,  to  tell 
hereafter-— Horace  Greeley. 

How  the  mighty  hath  fallen,  and  how  wonderfully  they 
have  changed,  and  how  quick  they  have  been  about  both!  The 
idea  of  a  Southern  gentleman  licking  the  foul  hands  and  em- 
bracing the  accursed  carcass  of  such  as  "Beast  Butler"  and 
Horace  Greeley,  and  call  it  Democracy! 

That  General  Dick  Taylor  was  the  son  of  his  father,  Old 
Rough-and-Ready  General  Zachary  Taylor,  of  glorious  mem- 
ory, was  one  reason  why  he  was  put  in  command  of  the  Army 
of  Louisiana,  and  the  other  was  for  the  same  reason  that 
"Lovell,  Duncan  and  Pemberton  superseded  Southern  generals 
and  patriots.  General  Dick  Taylor  was  a  brother-in-law  of 
the  President  of  the  Confederacy,  who  was  mighty  good  to  all 
of  his  relations,  near,  distant  or  remote.  I  do  not  remember 
of  ever  having  heard  of  one  who  was  not  provided  for  with 


96  CAMPAIGNING  IN   LOUISIANA. 

some  office  at  the  expense  of  the  Southern  cause  and  South- 
ern people. 

Of  my  personal  liking  and  experiences  I  shall  refer  in  a 
future  chapter,  and  if  what  I  may  say  shall  make  any  of  the 
old  Confederates  wince  and  swear  at  the  truth  being  told,  as 
has  been  in  the  past  pages,  ''so  mote  it  be,"  for  I  am  not  in 
this  game  to  advance  and  promote  the  interest  of  any  knave 
or  fool  or  the  descendant  thereof,  who  in  any  manner,  shape 
or  form  is  responsible  for  or  aided  the  ruination  and  the  dis- 
grace of  the  people  of  the  South  by  bringing  about  a  war  and 
handling  it  in  such  a  way  as  to  disgrace  every  man  who  had 
anything  to  do  with  its  handling,  except  those  who  were  re- 
tired by  the  Administration  at  Richmond,  as  they  tried  to  do 
with  General  Robert  E.  Lee  after  the  battle  of  Gettysburg, 
but  stalwart  patriotism  and  Southern  chivalry  of  the  grand 
and  noble  sort  and  style,  boldly  proclaimed  in  the  City  of  Rich- 
mond, that- if  Lee  was  forced  to  resign  the  head  of  the  Admin- 
istration would  roll  as  a  football  on  Broad  Street. 

The  feeling  of  the  Confederate  army  which  had  done  the 
fighting  and  who  had  suffered  the  losses,  against  the  Admin- 
istration was  becoming  so  bitter  at  the  close  of  the  war  as  to 
all  but  invite  revolt.  On  the  ninth  and  tenth  of  July,  1864,  the 
feeling  was  so  intense  in  the  City  of  Richmond  against  the 
Administration  that  General  Winder's  Provost  Guard  dis- 
banded, and  I  with  my  own  eyes  saw,  and  with  my  own  ears 
heard  that  which  all  of  the  friends  of  the  Administration  have 
assiduously  sought  to  obliterate,  kill  and  forever  destroy. 

I  visited  Castle  Thunder  and  Libby  Prison,  and  but  for  a 
speech  which  was  made  by  the  Maine  anti-liquor-white-liv- 
ered-Yankee-General  Neal  Dow,  who  had  been  convicted  in 
Alabama  for  stealing  piano  keys,  while  on  a  raid  through  a- 
portion  of  the  State  in  which  were  no  soldiers  or  home  de- 
fenders, and  had  been  .sent  to  the  penitentiary,  and  who  had 
been  released  by  the  Governor  of  Alabama  upon  the  request 


CAMPAIGNING  IN    LOUISIANA.  97 

of  the  Administration  in  Richmond  because  eighty-five  ATon- 
federate  officers  of  Johnson's  Island  had  been  put  in  solitary 
confinement  and  held  as  hostages  there  until  Neal  Dow  was 
released,  just  as  I  had  been  put  in  solitary  confinement  in  New 
Orleans  for  Captain.  Dwight  and  afterwards  in  Ship  Island 
for  Major  Montgomery. 

There  was  no  guard  around  Castle  Thunder  or  Libby 
Prison  neither.  A  Federal  officer,  whose  name  I  never  could 
get,  rose  up  and  called  for  volunteers  to  follow  him  and  to 
take  up  arms  and  to  go  to  Libby  Prison  and  from  there  pro- 
ceed to  the  Capitol  and  capture  the  Confederacy.  He  had 
been  out  on  the  street  as  I  had  been  and  saw  the  situation — 
utter  demoralization,  no  order,  no  government.  He  created  a 
great  enthusiasm,  and  I  plainly  saw  right  there  the  doom  of 
the  Confederacy  and  the  last  of  the  Administration  which  had 
brought  on  the  doom,  and  I  expected  to  see  some  hot  times 
that  day  in  Richmond. 

At  this  juncture  the  aforesaid  Neal  Dow  rose  up  and  ap- 
pealed to  them  not  to  do  this  but  to  wait,  that  possibly  within 
a  few  hours  the  sound  of  Mead's  army  would  be  heard  on  the 
heights  around  Richmond.  I  was  so  incensed  at  the  white-liv- 
ered old  coward's  talk  that  I  felt  like  pulling  my  six-shooter 
and  killing  him  on  the  spot,  for  above  all  things  on  this  earth 
I  hate  a  coward  as  I  hate  a  hypocrite,  and  he  was  both,  and 
this,  too,  regardless  as  to  which  side  he  belonged. 

My  home  was  out  at  Camp  Lee  Prison  parole  ground, 
where  for  three  days  and  nights  we  received  no  rations,  and 
we  poor  Confederate  devils,  .who  were  under  parole  to  not  lift 
up  arms  against  the  Federal  Government  until"  duly  exchanged, 
were  really  at  the  mercy  of  both  sides.  I  shall  never  forget  the 
speech  that  General  Roger  A.  Pryor  made  on  a  bridge  which 
spanned  the  street  between  two  of  the  principal  hotels,  and 
how  the  thousands  who  heard  him  applauded. 

He  pointed  to  a  bulletin  board  on  which  was  written  a 


98  CAMPAIGNING  IN   LOUISIANA. 

dispatch  from  General  R.  E.  Lee  to  J.  Davis,  Esq.,  President 
of,  etc.,  eta,  who  had  held  back  an  army  which  if  Lee  had, 
and  expected  to  have,  and  as  had  been  ordered,  might  have 
saved  the  battle  of  Gettysburg  for  the  Confederacy,  and  who 
had  intimated  that  his  resignation  might  be  accepted.  This 
dispatch  read  in  substance  about  as  follows : 

"That  if  in  the  wisdom  of  the  Government  my  resignation 
would  be  acceptable  it  shall  be  tendered  forthwith,  to  take 
effect  immediately,  or  as  soon  as  my  successor  shall  be  able  to 
take  command  in  the  field." 

If  Davis  trembled  when  he  was  captured  in  his  wife's 
gown,  when  he  and  his  surrounders  and  all  arounders  heard 
the  wild  yell  and  the  maddening  hisses  which  all  but  split  the 
throats  of  every  Virginian  and  all  who  had  been  true  to  the 
cause;  if  he  penned  the  dispatch  himself  which  was  sent 
within  five  minutes  after  General  Pryor  had  promised  that  his 
head  should  play  as  a  football  on  Broad  Street  and  the  original 
could  be  produced,  I  would  gamble  all  my  earthly  wealth  that 
it  was  written  so  tremblingly  that  he  was  glad  when  he  got 
done  with  it. 

Pryor  called  upon  the  Virginians  to  go  back  to  their  posts 
and  take  up  their  arms  and  protect  the  city,  which  was 
promptly  done,  and  old  General  Winder,  who,  by  the  way,  was 
not  very  distantly  related  to  the  family  whose  name  I  bear, 
who  a  few  days  before  had  been  all  of  a  tyrant  that  he  could 
be,  reassumed  command  like  a  little  lost  purring  kitten  or  a 
tender  unmarked  lamb,  and  reminded  me  of  old  Jacob  T'own- 
send's  patent  medicine  advertisement  of  two  pictures,  repre- 
senting, one  man  then  and  now,  or  before  and  after  taking 
Bull's  Sarsaparilla. 

In  order  that  my  account  shall  properly  chime  in,  I  shall 
in  the  next  chapter  tell  of  what  I  left  out,  and  which  should 
have  preceded  this  one  but  for  reasons  known  to  myself,  and 
that  may  be  guessed  at  by  others  why  I  do  as  I  have. 


WITH  MAGRUDER  AT  GALVESTON. 


The  Brigade  rendezvoused  at  Milican,  Texas,  in  Novem- 
ber after  our  return  from  the  disgraceful,  because  it  was  not 
officered,  and  disastrous,  because  it  was  not  properly  provided 
for,  campaign  of  New  Mexico.  We  came  together  with  new 
horses  and  quartermasters  and  commissary  supplies  as  ordered, 
bringing  with  us  fully  one-half,  in  point  of  numbers,  of  Texas 
conscripts,  boys  just  out  of  the  cradle,  odd  men  just  ready  to 
step  into  the  deep,  dark  beyond,  filling  our  ranks  to  the  orig- 
inal number  and  requirements. 

There  was  corn  if  no  wine  and  milk  in  Egypt,  and  there 
was  more  meat,  both  hog  and  beef,  as  well  as  corn  on  the 
Brazos,  both  sides  up  and  down  from  where  it  empties  into 
the  Gulf  'way  up  Waco  way.  Our  horses  and  mules  did  fatten 
amazingly,  and  we  old  boys  and  the  conscripts  did  well,  and 
by  drilling  between  the  rains  and  storms,  which  I  always  con- 
sidered was  done  to  show  off  the  officers'  new  uniforms  and 
authority  vastly  more  than  for  any  good  it  did  the  men  or  the 
service,  we  did  enjoy  ourselves  the  two  months  we  were  in 
camp  at  Milican  and  Hempstead,  and,  as  it  was,  we  got  along 
fairly  well. 

What  became  of  General  Sibley  along  about  this  time  no 
one  ever  knew,  but  it  was  generally  supposed  that  he  crawled 
into  a  jug  hole  and  pulled  the  jug  and  hole  in  after  him.  Our 
Brigade  orders  came  signed  by  Colonel  Green,  he  of  the  Sec- 
ond Regiment,  and  who  was  the  senior  officer  at  this  time,  by 
reason  of  Colonel  Riley's  being  called  to  Richmond  to  give  an 
account  of  his  having  failed  to  swipe  off,  by  bamboozling  or 
otherwise,  the  four  Northern  Mexican  States  and  to  apologize 
for  Sibley's  failure,  and  no  doubt  to  tell  why  Jack  Hayes,  an 

99 


IOO  WITH  MAGRUDER  AT  GALVESTON. 

old  Texan,  and  Judge  Terry,  another — he  who  killed  Senator 
Brodericks — and  a  lot  of  other  similar  Southern  puffs  in  Cali- 
fornia, had  not  done  as  promised. 

Colonel  Riley  was  a  man  of  deep  patriotism  and  statesman- 
ship. He  had  no  equal  in  all  the  West.  I  was  told  by  a  man 
near  the  "Crown  Head"  that  his  explanation  did  not  suit  the 
Administration,  but  it  had  to  go. 

Colonel  Green  was  a  man  who,  when  out  of  whisky,  was 
a  mild  mannered  gentleman,  but  when  in  good  supply  of  old 
burst-head  was  all  fight  He  was  like  the  fellow  who  was  so 
keen  for  a  fight  that  he  set  a  buzz  saw  in  motion.  Green  was 
killed  at  Blair's  Landing  in  Louisiana  by  a  cannon  shot  from 
a  gunboat  which  was  out  in  the  river  nearly  on  a  level  with 
the  levee,  and  which  was  ten  feet  higher  than  the  field  over 
which  Green  charged  with  a  raw  Texas  regiment  (Wood's) 
that  had  never  been  in  a  fight  before.  Green  placed  himself 
at  their  head  and  with,  a  yell  told  them  that  he  was  going  to 
show  them  how  to  fight.  Had  they  had  as  much  Louisiana 
rum  under  their  belts  as  Green  had,  my  sympathies  for  the 
dead  would  not  4iave  been  soi  great  as  they  were. 

Three  hundred  and  more  were  killed  in  less  time  than  it 
takes  me  to  tell  it,  while  riding  into  the  mouths  o>f  these  death- 
dealing,  belching,  grape-and-canister-loaded  cannons  from  the 
gunboats  out  in  the  stream.  Of  all  the  fool  acts  of  all  the 
Confederate  history  this  excelled  them  all.  Yet  there  are  peo- 
ple in  Texas  today  who  believe  that  when  they  die  they  will 
go  to  Tom  Green  on  the  other  side  of  the  River.  I  hope  that 
my  future  Guide  and  Protector  will  not  land  me  in  that  camp. 

On  the  night  of  the  twenty-seventh  of  December  we  re- 
ceived orders  to  leave  our  horses  in  charge  of  a  detail  and  take 
the  train  at  Hempstead  and  Milican  and  go  to  Houston ;  no 
man  knew  why,  but  it  was  believed  that  the  Federals  had 
landed  on  the  mainland  from  off  Galveston  and  were  marching 
to  Houston. 


WITH   MAGRUDER  AT  GALVESTON.  IOI 

General  J.  Bankheacl  McGruder,  who  had  done  some  drink- 
ing and  fighting  down  in  Virginia  and  who  had  said  some- 
thing which  did  not  please  the  Administration,  was  sent  out 
and  placed  in  command  of  the  District  of  Texas,  etc.  I  believe 
that  it  was  decided  a  draw  as  between  McGruder  and  Sibley 
and  about  all  other  old  army  officers,  as  to  which  one  could 
destroy  the  most  whiskey,  regardless  of  its  brand,  and  mix  it 
up  with  gin,  brandy  and  rum  and  even  sour  lager  beer. 

McGruder  had  an  adjutant  general  who  was  a  gentle- 
man and  who  never  drank ;  that  is,  I  never  saw  him,  and  who 
was  always  on  guard.  McGruder  concluded  to  show  the  Fed- 
erals, about  twelve  hundred  strong  in  Galveston  and  with  four 
gunboats  and  a  revenue  cutter,  the  Harriett  Lane,  a  combina- 
tion of  a  Virginian  and  Texas  trick,  and  in  furtherance  of  the 
same  had  filled  up  some  big  flatboats  with  cotton  all  around 
and  a  bow-and-aft  chaser,  six-pound  brass  piece,  with  Texas 
Rangers  packed  in  between.  Three  steamers  that  had  plied 
between  Galveston  and  Houston  for  a  generation  or  more  were 
baled  all  around  with  cotton  and  mounted  with  cannons  and 
aft  chasers,  with  several  nine-inch  guns  on  each. 

This  flotilla,  loaded  with  twelve  or  fifteen  hundred  men, 
was  moored  in  at  Lynchburg  and  our  land  forces  were  held 
back  at  Virginia  Point  on  the  mainland,  calculating  that  when 
the  signal  was  given  to  move,  the  land  forces  could  make  the 
center  of  the  city  simultaneously  with  the  arrival  of  the  flotilla, 
the  latter  attacking  the  gunboats,  and  the  former  the  land 
forces  behind  the  cotton  compress  walls. 

Exactly  at  twelve  o'clock  on  the  first  day  of  January,  the 
very  first  minutes  of  the  New  Year's  life,  1864,  the  signal  for 
an  advance  was  sounded,  and  away  went  "Colly  and  the 
wagon,  Tray,  Blanch  and  Sweetheart."  At  four  o'clock  the 
first  shot  was  fired  on  the  water.  Then  it  was  that  the 
''Rangers  of  the  land  greeted  the  Rangers  of  the  sea"  and  the 
fighting  commenced,  we  double-quicking  to  our  assigned  posi- 


IO2  WITH   MAGRUDER  AT  GALVESTON. 

tion  of  assault.  The  Federal  gunboats  had  no  idea  of  an  attack 
from  anything  in  the  rear  and  they  lined  up  to  bombard  the 
city  beyond  the  compresses,  which  were  on  the  wharves,  and 
to  otherwise  discommode  and  make  it  unpleasant  for  "we- 
uns." 

The  gunboat  Owassa  lay  at  the  foot  of  Tremont  street, 
down  which  about  one  thousand  of  the  Old  Brigade  (the 
others  were  on  the  flotilla  or  gunboats)  was  double-quicking 
for  position.  A  twelve-inch  shot  was  fired  which  went  about 
ten  feet  over  our  heads  and  landed  somewhere  towards  the 
middle  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  I  never  heard  such  a  cyclone 
of  peculiar  hospital  feelings  as  that  produced.  The  Federals 
were  on  to  us,  and  the  next  shot  which  came  out  of  that  same 
gun  just  skimmed  the  face  of  the  earth  and,  after  rolling  and 
bouncing  over  the  mile  and  one-half  of  street  to  the  Gulf, 
recherched,  and  the  last  I  saw  of  it  it  was  on  its  way  to  Tam- 
pico,  Mexico. 

We  were  rushed  in  behind  the  Custom  House,  a  brick 
building  which  had  been  erected  only  a  short  time  before  the 
commencement  of  hostilities,  and  were  ordered  to  be  still.  By 
this  time  the  balls  and  shot  and  shell  from  the  Federal  fleet 
was  playing  havoc  with  the  brick  and  stone  buildings  that  were 
then  on  the  island,  and  mortar  and  dust  and  brickbats  and 
pieces  of  shells  were  about  as  thick  as  anyone  ever  saw  weasels 
in  a  barnyard,  and  there  we  were  in  a  very  dilapidated  if  not 
scared  condition,  for  to>  be  placed  in  a  position  where  you  can- 
not fight  back  is  one  of  the  dreadful  things  that  a  soldier  has 
no  liking  for. 

In  my  company  we  had  a  fiddler,  a  song  bird  and  all- 
around  jolly-maker,  who  did  more  to  keep  up  the  spirits  of  our 
marching  sufferers  on  the  retreat,  with  his  old  fiddle  and  bow, 
than  all  else.  He  weighed  less  than  one  hundred  pounds,  and 
though  little,  was,  like  the  Irishman's  pig,  old,  and  was  always 
giving  us  amusement  and  something  to  laugh  at.  He  was  in 


WITH   MAGRUDER  AT  GALVESTON.  103 

the  very  middle  of  the  twelve  hundred  soldiers,  packed  like 
sardines,  behind  the  Custom  House,  when  he  whispered  in  a 
loud  voice  that  all  heard: 

"Boys,  be still,  for  if  them Yankees 

hear  us  and  find  out  where  we  are  they  will  bring  out  that 

gun  they  have  got  that  shoots  around  the  corners." 

Such  a  laugh  as  went  up  was  only  what  might  be  expected 
of  men  placed  as  we  were.  Soldiers  on  the  eve  of  battle  either 
want  to  pray,  cry  or  laugh,  and  if  they  can  just  get  to  laughing 
you  have  got  them  ready  for  a  fight.  Treat  is  a  sure  winner. 

We  had  scarcely  become  still  again  when  bim — !  sounded 
a  ten  or  twelve-inch  steel-pointed  three-foot-long  ball,  fired 
from  a  rifled  piece.  It  struck  the  slanting  railroad  bars  that 
had  been  put  in  the  structure  as  rafters,  and  it  plowed  the  slate 
roof  in  a  most  fearful  way  and  pointed  its  nose  straight  up, 
perpendicular,  and  it  seemed  to  me — I  saw  it  plainly — that  it 
went  somewhere  in  the  neighborhood  of  twenty-five  hundred 
feet  in  the  air  to  get  a  sight  of  where  we  were  and  then  it 
turned  around  and  came  down,  right  in  our  midst,  and  I  am 
sure  that  it  penetrated  the  earth  one  thousand  feet  or  more. 
It  did  not  burst  and  this  made  the  Federals  on  the  Owassa  turn 
a  broadside  on  us,  and  in  a  few  minutes  we  were  literally  cov- 
ered with  brick  and  mortar  and  were  in  a  condition  of  collapse 
when  all  of  a  sudden  we  heard  a  different  sound. 
Firing  on  us  ceased  and  some  men  yelled  out: 
"Tom  Green  and  his  Rangers  of  the  sea  are  in  sight!" 
No  marine  battle  was  ever  fought  from  which  a  more  beau- 
tiful sea  engagement  could  have  been  painted.  The  boats  on 
both  sides  closed  in  and  it  became  a  hand-to-hand  fight.  We 
captured  the  Harriett  Lane  after  having  jarred  its  larboard 
wheel  with  a  solid  shot;  our  men  scaled  the  netting  and  the 
fight  became  pirate-like,  hand-to-hand.  Its  gallant  com- 
mander, Captain  Lee,  fell  dead  on  the  bridge.  We  buried  him 
the  next  day  with  all  the  honors  of  war  and  by  his  side  the 


IO4  WITH   MAGRUDER  AT  GALVESTON. 

brave  men  whose  blood  painted  the  Harriett  Lane's  top,  center 
and  bottom  cabins  red. 

Wainright,  commanding  the  fleet,  blew  his  flagship,  the 
Westerfield,  up.  The  engagement  lasted  perhaps  an  hour.  The 
land  forces  quickly  surrendered  and  Galveston  was  again  at- 
tached to  the  Confederacy.  Our  loss  in  this  engagement  was 
not  so  great  as  might  have  been  expected.  We  captured  a 
large  amount  of  Government  supplies,  which  were  much 
needed,  for  we  had  become  tired  of  Texas  beef  and  rancid 
bacon  and  corn  dodger  without  coffee. 

Before  this  time  I  had  lost  all  hopes  of  the  Confederacy 
and  I  was  not  making  myself  very  active.  Yet  I  was  always 
to  be  found  on  duty  and  do  not  remember  of  ever  having 
shown  the  white  feather.  What  I  thought  I  told  no  man,  but 
it  was  in  substance  that  if  my  record  could  be  made  clean  I 
would  go  to  the  rear  and  keep  on  going  until  I  struck  a  coun- 
try where  there  was  no  danger  of  its  being  invaded.  I  might 
fill  pages  in  telling  of  what  occurred  in  Galveston  and  Houston 
in  the  next  few  months,  for  we  had  lively  times. 

News  of  our  victory  was  conveyed  to  Nassau,  N.  P.,  with 
all  possible  dispatch,  from  Galveston  via  Wilmington,  North 
Carolina,  then  and  for  a  long  time  afterwards  the  center  for 
blockade  runners,  and  "blockade-running"  ships  that  were 
loaded,  intended  for  Wilmington,  were  sent  to  Galveston, 
where  in  the  course  of  a  few  months  nearly  twenty  were  un- 
loaded and  reloaded  with  cotton,  which  paid  for  the  ammuni- 
tion and  ordnance,  principally  Napoleon  brass  pieces,  which 
were  worked  off  on  the  Confederacy,  and  were  as  absolutely 
worthless  as  were  our  old  cast-iron  "Long  Toms." 

France,  Austria,  Germany  and  England  had  a  snap  work- 
ing off  on  the  Confederacy  their  old  obsolete  arms  and  ammu- 
nition, and  of  course  our  purchasing  agents  were  not  all  fools 
and  not  one  of  them  ever  returned  to  the  Confederacy,  and 
why  should  they? 


WITH   MAGRUDER  AT  GALVESTON.  1 05 

It  had  always  been  my  opinion  that  the  cotton  which  was 
shipped  to  England  by  and  through. the  blockade  runners  and 
through  Mexico,  and  the  many  thousands  of  bales  which  were 
taken  down  Red  River  and  the  Mississippi  in  broad  daylight 
and  right  before  the  eyes  of  us  Confederate  boys,  called  French 
cotton,  made  up  a  balance  of  many  and  many  millions  of 
dollars  to  the  cerdit  o>f  the  so-called  Confederate  States,  but 
which  was  draivable  by  the  same  agents  who  deposited  it,  and 
thus  the  incident  was  closed. 

I  was  both  on  to  and  up  to  this  job  and  would  have  been 
one  of  them  myself  had  not  the  Federal  blockading  fleet  of 
Galveston  come  in  port  and  cut  the  blockade  runner  ''Lucy 
Gwinne"  from  the  wharf  and  taken  it  out  to  sea  a  prize.  She 
had  only  about  forty  bales  of  cotton  on  her.  Had  they  waited 
about  ten  or  fifteen  days  longer  they  would  have  gotten  a 
full  cargo  of  compressed  cotton  and  "me  to,"  as  Pratt  said. 

This  cotton  was  ostensibly  going  out  under  the  name  of 
the  Confederacy  and  to  buy  more  old  effete  and  worthless 
French  cannon,  but  I  knew  better,  and  so  did  the  men  who 
put  up  the  money  to  buy  the  cotton.  They  were  middle-aged 
men  and  surely  never  had  the  sad  and  sorrowful  experience 
that  I  have  had  with  my  fellow  men  and  their  foibles,  frail- 
ties and  all-around  cussedness  or  they  would  not  have  trusted 
me  as  they  did  and  were  going  to  in  this  matter. 

In  those  days  the  scramble  was  for  a  position'  that  gave  a 
man  an  opportunity  to  steal.  I  was  not  engaged  in  any  stealing 
business  and  I  know  that  if  my  life  had  been  spared  and  I  had 
landed  in  the  port  to  which  we  were  to  sail,  every  dollar  would 
have  been  accounted  for  and  I  would  yet  have  had  enough  of 
my  own  to  have  lived  in  all  sorts  of  comfort  on  the  other  side, 
and  this  all  I  knew  as  well  as  I  knew  that  "the  gal  I  left  be- 
hind me"  would  have  joined  me  on  the  Rhine. 

But  for  the  feeling  which  pervaded  my  breast,  and,  secret 
though  it  was,  pervaded  the  breast  of  every  other  intelligent 


IO6  WITH  MAGRUDER  AT  GALVESTON. 

man  of  the  Confederacy,  there  might  have  been  some  show 
for  asking,  demanding  and  receiving  terms  and  conditions. 
The  man  who  declared  that  the  Confederacy  would  win  out 
was  looked  upon  as  a  liar  or  a  fool,  and  no  remarks  were 
made  by  any  intelligent  person  on  hearing  a  fool  or  knave  so 
talk. 

The  Conscript  Act  in  its  way  was  no  worse  than  the  Tith- 
ing Act,  which  took  from  ten  to  fifty  per  cent  of  everything 
that  was  raised  and  produced,  from  chickens  up.  Who  raised 
four  bales  of  cotton  had  to  give  one  to  the  Government,  and 
for  the  privilege  of  taking  his  three  to  the  market  he  was  also 
required  to  take  the  other,  which  was  to  be  turned  over  to 
the  Government  Agent,  who  was  to  see  that  it  was  shipped 
to  some  agent  in  England  designated  by  the  Government  in 
Richmond.  The  part  of  the  Government  that  did  get  over 
were  in  clover — Jeff  did  not  make  it,  and  those  who  did  sent 
him  none  of  the  steal. 

If  you  wanted  to  take  six  bales  of  cotton  to  Mexico  to 
boy  supplies,  you  had  to  transport  two  for  the  Government, 
and  then  you  had  to  take  one-fourth  of  your  freight  back  to 
Government  account.  There  were  places  in  the  Confederacy, 
like  Jackson,  Mississippi,,  which  was  the  most  notorious,  where 
a  private  Confederate  soldier  was  not  allowed  to  walk  on  the 
sidewalk.  This  was  in  the  days  of  Pemberton,  whom  the  Gov- 
ernment had  sent  first  to  Charleston,  South  Carolina,  which 
they  supposed  was  made  impregnable  by  Beauregard,  whom 
they  removed  when  it  was  thought  he  might  have  gained  a 
signal  victory. 

Beauregard  was  sent  to  Vicksburg  and  he  was  fixing  up 
the  line  of  defense  in  a  thorough  manner  when  the  Government 
sent  Pemberton  from  Charleston  to  take  command  at  Vicks- 
burg, and  Beauregard  was  laid  on  the  shelf.  I  never  met  this 
Pemberton,  but  I  was  told  by  many  that  he  was  a  lover  of  John 
Barley-corn,  was  an  autocrat  and  a  great  ladies'  man,  who, 


WITH  MAGRUDEK  AT  GALVESTOX.  \OJ 

instead  of  provisioning  Vicksburg  and  attending  to  his  duties, 
was  attending  balls  and  big  ovations  given  him  by  the  ladies 
of  Mississippi,  aided  largely,  I  suppose,  by  Scott's  and  Wort 
Adams'  Cavalry,  to  which  I  have  made  reference  before. 

The  loss  of  eight  thousand  men  at  Big  Black,  when  Grant 
started  to  invest  Vicksburg,  was,  as  I  have  always  believed,  the 
fruits  of  inattention  to  anything  else  but  drinking  whisky. 
With  these  eight  thousand  men  properly  officered  and  handled 
• — for  they  were  the  best  that  were  ever  marshaled  in  any  cause 
— Grant  could  not  have  invested  Vicksburg  as  he  did  and 
without  ten  times  the  loss  he  sustained. 

The  Confederacy  sustained  its  first  heavy  loss  in  my  opin- 
ion in  the  death  of  General  Albert  Sidney  Johnston  at  Shiloh. 
The  fall  of  Fort  Donelson  was  a  foregone  conclusion,  as  was 
the  capture  of  Arkansas  Post  to  all  who  knew  of  the  situation 
and  the  lay  of  the  country.  There  never  was  marshaled  in 
battle  array  a  braver  soldiery  than  that  of  the  Confederate 
army,  and  in  no  one  instance  of  the  war  can  it  be  shown  where 
failure  to  hold  their  point  or  to  gain  ground  was  attributable  to 
anything  else  than  incompetency  of  their  commanders,  pos- 
sibly excepting  the  fights  around  Richmond,  where  Lee  had 
such  a  hold  on  his  army  that  the  Government  could  not  dis- 
place him,  and  in  whom  his  soldiers  had  the  most  wonderful 
confidence. 

I  look  back  at  those  days  and  am  amazed  at  how  the  people 
and  the  soldiery  were  kept  from  revolting  and  demanding  a 
new  deal  all  around.  We  had  many  as  great  soldiers  as  Lee, 
and  as  Joseph  E.  Johnson  and  Stonewall  Jackson,  but  they 
were  handicapped  and  ordered  back,  as  were  the  advancing 
army  at  the  battle  of  Manassas,  when  it  as  good  as  had  the 
city  of  Washington. 

I  am  not  saying  but  that  the  war  ended  as  fate  decreed  it 
should  from  the  start,  but  I  am  saying  that  the  man  who  spent 
his  time  in  the  service,  as  I  did,  and  who  was  willing  at  all 


IO8  WITH   MAGRUDER  AT  GALVESTON. 

times  to  make  any  sort  of  sacrifice  for  his  country,  never  has 
said  that  it  ended  according  to  his  liking  and  that  he  was 
glad  that  it  ended  as  it  did. 

I  have  heard  men  who  professed  to  have  been  in  more 
battles  than  I  ever  could  have  lived  through  say  to  Northern 
gatherings,  Grand  Army  of  the  Republic  reunions  and  in 
public  places,  that  they  were  glad  that  it  ended  as  it  did.  I 
thought  then,  do  yet,  and  will  die  so  thinking,  that  the  man 
who  believed  that  these  men  were  telling  the  truth  was  too 
big  a  fool  to  be  a  citizen  of  this  great  republic,  much  less  a 
soldier. 

I  made  a  declaration  of  this  nature  to  a  considerable  num- 
ber of  men  who  were  fighting  Federals,  and  who  without  an 
exception  agreed  with  me,  and  they  also:  agreed  with  me  that 
the  Southern  man  who  took  such  a  position  became  the  more 
loyal  a  citizen  of  the  United  States  upon  taking  the  oath  of 
allegiance  than  did  those  sycophants  who  had  two  ways  of 
talking.  I  have  found  that  this  class  of  men  when  in  a  crowd 
of  Southern  men  were  the  ones  who  abused  the  Yankees  the 
most  and  who  were  the  loudest  Democrats  when  they  were 
anywhere  down  South,  but  who  never  failed  to  tell  their 
Northern  neighbors  that  they  always  voted  the  Republican 
ticket. 

For  declaring  as  I  did  I  was  called  upon  and  billed  to 
make  a  talk.  Some  people  say  that  I  have  made  some  good 
speeches  or  can  make  a  good  speech,  but  I  have  never  thought 
so,  yet  am  conscious  of  the  fact  that  I  can  make  a  good  talk. 

Before  my  time  came  to  talk  I  had  hired  a  man  in  the 
crowd  to  ask  that  I  first  tell  how  it  was  that  I  was  here  at 
this  great  dedicatory  occasion.  After  being  introduced  by  a 
toastmaster  who  pronounced  a  panegyric  on  me  or  over  me, 
this  question  was  asked  from  the  assembly,  which  I  proceeded 
to  answer  after  having  cautioned  all  old  soldiers  present  not 
to  be  surprised  at  the  answer  that  I  was  going  to  give  and 


WITH   MAGRUDER  AT  GALVESTON.  109 

telling  all  the  ladies  and  young  men  and  others  who  never 
had  seen  service  in  the  tented  or  battlefield  that  it  was  not  their 
"put"  and  that  they  must  not  express  surprise  at  my  explana- 
tion as  to  "why  I  was  here  to-night." 

After  thus  talking  to  the  audience  until  they  had  become 
anxious  to  receive  the  answer  to  the  question,  in  substance 
I  said: 

"Up  to  the  close  of  the  war  with  the  States  no  Yankee 
had  been  born  who  was  able  to  make  a  powder  that  was  quick 
enough,  that  had  strength  enough  to  send  a  chunk  of  lead  fast 
enough  to  overtake  me  when  I  started  for  the  rear,  and  that 
1  was  like  Jehu's  horse,  always  able  to  sniff  a  battle  from  afar." 

In  the  excitement,  hollering  and  hurrahing,  I  got  from  the 
platform  and  was  never  afterward  seen  in  that  place. 

My  contention  has  always  been  that  had  the  people  of  the 
South  been  led  by  competent  leaders,  terms  could  have  been 
secured  that  would  have  left  the  people,  both  white  and  black, 
in  altogether  different  and  better  circumstances.  Every  nig- 
ger in  the  South  could  have  been  paid  for  and  sent  to  Africa  or 
some  other  country  with  far  less  money  than  was  robbed  from 
them  in  the  days  of  reconstruction,  to  say  nothing  of  the  losses 
since. 

In  my  day  and  time  I  have  had  many  different  opinions, 
but  on  this  question  I  have  never  changed  my  mind  and  never 
will,  and  no  man  who  will  go  through  the  South  and  see,  as  I 
have  in  the  past  few  years,  and  who  can  remember  of  having 
seen  it  fifty  years  ago,  will  say  that  I  am  wrong.  The  in- 
telligent man  who  knows  the  negro's  character  can  never  ex- 
pect the  condition  of  affairs  in  the  South'  to  improve,  but  must 
reasonably  expect  them  to  grow  worse.  No  intelligent,  hon- 
est man  dare  say  that  the  negro  is  capable  of  self-government, 
and  no  education  will  ever  make  him  capable. 

The  negro's  make-up  and  character,  as  is  the  case  of  all 


HO  WITH   MAGRUDER  AT  GALVESTON. 

Southern  races  of  off-color,  has  no  more  of  the  element  of 
gratefulness  than  there  is  to  be  found  in  a  cat,  a  tiger  or  a 
wolf.  In  this  one  particular  point  they  differ  so  greatly  from 
the  Anglo-Saxon  race  that  it  cannot  be  appreciated  by  people 
who  have  not  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  negro,  from  other 
than  absolute  personal  contact  and  experience. 

I  have  observed  in  the  last  few  years  that  all  the  able-bodied 
negroes,  men  and  women,  are  flocking  to  the  cities  and  going 
farther  North  in  every  move  they  make,  and  the  effect  it  is 
having  in  these  cities.  I  recently  passed  through  a  neighbor- 
hood where  a  few  years  ago  there  were  one  hundred  and  sixty 
negro  voters,  that  today  has  not  a  single  voter  in  it,  and  only 
about  forty  old,  decrepit  niggers  live  in  the  district.  In  the 
large  cities  of  the  South,  like  Atlanta,  Georgia,  you  can  see 
them  by  the  hundreds  standing  around  on  the  streets.  Their 
wives  and  daughters  can  get  service  in  a  kitchen  in  a  private 
house  and  can  earn  from  one  to  ten  times  as  much  as  they 
could  earn  on  the  farm,  and  with,  their  wages  they  can  sup- 
port a  family  of  men  folks  in  idleness. 

The  negro  who  once  leaves  a  farm  can  never  be  induced 
to  return,  except  it  may  be  to  cut  cane  or  pick  cotton,  and  when 
he  has  been  paid  for  his  day's  labor  there  is  no  assurance  that 
he  will  be  found  there  at  work  the  next  day.  They  are  rapidly 
acquiring  the  ability  of  living  for  days  at  a  time  without  any- 
thing to  eat,  and  it  is  surprising  to  know  on  what  a  small 
amount  they  can  subsist.  In  the  days  of  slavery  a  peck  of 
meal,  two  ounces  of  salt  and  two  pounds  of  bacon  were  a  nig- 
ger's weekly  rations.  I  believe  that  there  are  thousands  of 
them  today  who  are  living  on  less  than  that.  They  rely  upon 
filling  up  when  they  go  to  do  a.  day's  work  spading  in  a  garden. 

It  is  a  part  of  a  nigger's  natural  make-up  to  be  indolent, 
insolent  and  thievish.  I  am  only  one  of  the  many  who  believe 
that  these  traits  cannot  be  educated  out  of  them  in  many  gen- 
erations of  time.  To  the  man  who  has  traveled  in  Mexico  and 


(See  Page  156, 


WITH   MAGRUDER  AT  GALVESTON.  Ill 

Cuba,  as  well  as  in  Egypt,  India  and  the  Orient,  and  has  un- 
derstood the  conditions  of  affairs  with  the  people  of  these  coun- 
tries, it  will  be  perfectly  plain  that  the  negro  question  in  the 
United  States  is  one  that  will  not  down  and  one  that  no  legis- 
lation will  benefit,  change  or  alter. 

That  they  are  on  the  increase  and  have  been  since  the  war 
one  need  only  to  look  to  the  census  reports  to  bcome  convinced, 
while  on  the  other  hand,  taking  out  the  emigration,  the  white 
population  in  the  South  is  on  the  decrease,  and  the  products 
of  the  country,  excepting  it  be  the  spots  where  only  vegetables 
and  fruits  can  be  raised  for  the  Northern  markets,  are  on  the 
wane.  Its  tobacco  and  its  once  "King  Cotton"  are  not  what 
they  were  even  a  few  years  ago;  the  soil  has  become  so  ex- 
hausted in  the  greater  area  of  the  Southern  States  that  we  can 
only  expect  to  see  it  become  more  and  more  depopulated. 

The  South  is  no  country  for  the  industrious  young  man  to 
go  to,  unless  he  goes  there  in  the  employ  of  a  railroad  or  some 
banking  institution,  and  it  is  a  good  country  for  all  men  to 
keep  away  from,  excepting  men  whom  nature  calls  to  a  warmer 
climate  in  winter  time  and  who  have  the  wherewith  to  live  on 
there  without  labor,  coming  from  a  dividend-paying  source 
in  the  North. 


PRISON  AND  PAROLE. 


After  I  had  been  returned  to  the  Iron  Works  at  Algiers, 
Louisiana — which  is  opposite  the  City  of  New  Orleans — I  re- 
joined a  great  number  of  my  old  Texas  and  Louisiana  com- 
rades, who,  like  myself,  had  been  captured  along  on  the  fir- 
ing lines.  I  was  astonished  at  first  that  the  Louisianans  were 
not  making  it  known  to  the  ladies  of  New  Orleans  or  their 
friends  there  that  they  were  in  prison.  Remembering  the 
name  of  an  old  friend,  I  wrote  to  her  through  the  courtesy  of 
the  Provost  Marshal  in  command  of  the  prison,  who  was  both 
a  gentleman,  a  Christian  and  a  soldier,  Colonel  J.  B.  Robinson 
of  the  Twenty-Sixth  Massachusetts  Infantry,  and  who  was 
still  living  in  1904. 

That  he  was  a  brave  man  no  one  could  dispute,  for  he 
treated  his  prisoners  as  only  a  brave  man  could.  We  were 
fed  on  as  good  as  the  Federal  soldiers  were,  which  was  about 
one  to  five  hundred  per  cent  better  than  what  we  had  been  ac- 
customed to  having.  Yet  there  were  a  great  number  who 
complained  who  had  not,  as  I  had  from  the  first,  realized  what 
General  Sherman  said  of  war,  that  "it  was  hell." 

I  was  sent  in  from  the  city  baskets  of  good  things  to  eat, 
and  it  was  but  a  few  days  before  I  was  allowed  to  meet  a  num- 
ber of  ladies  in  the  Provost  Marshal's  office,  who  put  no  spy 
over  us,  but  gave  us  every  liberty  and  privilege  a  brave  man 
could  give  a  captive. 

I  told  of  the  Louisianans  who  were  in  prison,  and  among 
them  quite  a  number  of  old  citizens  and  planters  who  were  not 
soldiers  and  should  not  have  been  there  and  would  not  have 
been  there  but  for  the  very  reasons  that  about  all  of  the  sugar 

112 


PRISON    AND   PAROLE.  1 13 

houses  and  cotton  plantations  were  destroyed  by  fire,  of  which 
I  will  tell  hereafter. 

These  old  men  had  charges  hatched  up  against  them  and 
were  made  to  suffer  without  cause.  Orally  it  had  reached 
New  Orleans  that  at  the  battle  of  Irish  Bend  I  had  been  the 
means  of  saving  the  army  of  Louisiana,  and  I  was  unbe- 
knownly  lionized  to  an  extent  that  surprised  me  and  which 
afterward  brought  me  trouble  in  this  way. 

A  cowardly  Yankee  cur  was  appointed  Provisional  Gov- 
ernor of  the  State  of  Louisiana  and  his  name  was  Sharkey. 
He  took  it  into  his  head  that  a  man  of  such  prominence  as  I 
must  be  an  officer  of  high  rank,  and  that  I  was  lying  when 
claiming  to  be  only  a  private  soldier.  He  sent  a  file  of  sol- 
diers after  me  and  I  was  brought  into  his  august  presence  in 
the  Custom  House,  where  his  office  was,  and  he  opened  out 
in  a  bombastic,  domineering  manner  by  telling  me  that  I  was 
a  lying  rebel,  and  that  he  was  going  to  put  me  in  chains  and 
send  me  to  the  dungeon  for  misrepresenting  my  position  in  the 
army.  He  would  not  allow  me  to  put  in  any  sort  of  a  plea 
or  statement,  for  he  said  from  the  start  that  he  would  not  be- 
lieve me  on  oath.  Though  hot-headed  and  quick  of  temper,  I 
have  always  been  fortunate  enough  to  keep  cool  under  trying 
circumstances,  and  this  was  not  the  first  time,  therefore  I  was 
in  a  measure  prepared. 

This  coward  was  cavorting  around,  damning  and  cursing 
all  rebels,  and  Texans  in  particular,  when  I  espied  General 
Franklin,  whom  I  did  not  know  as  such  but  who  had  the  marks 
of  rank  on  his  shoulders  and  collar,  and  I  addressed  him  in 
about  this  wise,  pointing  my  finger  to  him : 

"Sir,  I  appeal  to  you  for  protection.  My  name  is  Theo. 
Noel.  Will  you  carry  a  message  to  General  Banks  and  Doc- 
tor Rodgers?" 

He  looked  me  square  in  the  face  and  said :  "I  shall,  sir." 


114  PRISON    AND    PAROLE. 

Whereupon  the  cowardly  slink,  Sharkey,  called  Governor, 
flunked  and  said : 

"I  can  send  a  message  to  him.  Why  didn't  you  tell  me 
that  you  wanted  to  talk  with  the  General  in  command?" 

I  said  nothing  in  reply  until  after  he  had  again  commenced 

swearing  that  he  would  get  even  with  all  the 

Texan  Ranger  rebels  out  of . 

The  General,  who  recognized  my  signature,  sent  his  aid- 
de-camp  with  all  dispatch  to  General  Banks,  who  sent  his  Act- 
ing Adjutant  General  with  orders  to  release  and  send  me  to  his 
headquarters.  I  was  given  a  parole  of  the  city  for  two  days, 
and  it  was  given  out  that  Sharkey  should  not  know  but  that 
I  was  a  secret  service  man,  and  in  order  to  give  him  all  sorts 
of  annoyance  I  would  go  into  his  office  and  room  and  sit  down 
there  and  listen  and  watch  things,  and  the  cowardly  cur  knew 
better  than  to  speak  to  me.  *  *  * 

He  had  a  man  before  him  one  day  on  trial,  when  a  news- 
boy came  rushing  by  the  window  at  which  he  was  sitting, 
screaming  out  something  about  "Jeff  Davis  in  Pennsylvania,'' 
"Era  Extra,  Lee  and,"  etc.  The  room  was  full  and  Sharkey 
was  as  "drunk  as  a  biled  owl."  He  hollered  to  the  boy, 
"What's  that  about  Jeff  Davis  ?" 

The  prompt  reply  came,  "Played  hell  in  Pennsylvania !" 

Whereupon  the  whole  crowd  commenced  laughing  and 
giggling  and  howling,  and  Sharkey  picked  up  his  hat  and 
walked  out,  and  so  did  everybody  else,  including  the  prisoner 
and  myself. 

The  ladies  of  New  Orleans  were  then,  and  are  yet,  the 
noblest  set  of  grand,  brave,  self-sacrificing  women  that  could 
ever  honor  this  earth.  It  was  at  the  battle  of  Monsura  that 
the  women  of  Louisiana  proved  their  valor,  where  more  than 
one  hundred  were  on  the  battle-field  while  the  battle  was  go- 
ing on,  looking  after  the  wounded  and  administering  to  the 
dying.  Such  was  a  not  infrequent  occurrence  on  other  battle- 


PRISON    AND   PAROLE.  115 

fields,  for  the  women  of  the  South  were  nearly  all  alike,  except- 
ing a  large  number  if  not  a  majority  of  the  women  in  the  State 
of  Mississippi,  where  Wort  Adams'  and  Scott's  cavalry  dom- 
inated over  even  the  women,  whom  they  made  believe  that  they 
were  good  Confederate  soldiers. 

In  company  with  about  fourteen  hundred  others  from  the 
prison,  we  were  sent  on  two  transports  to  Port  Hudson  and 
were  given  a  parole.  This  was  a  Yankee  trick  that  no  brave 
man  could  have  sanctioned  or  have  tolerated.  The  next  day 
we  were  landed  in  Port  Hudson,  that  was  then  being  invested. 
General  Auger  with  his  division  of  twelve  thousand  negroes 
made  a  land  assault  from  below,  while  forty-two  Federal  mor- 
tar-boats and  six  gunboats  bombarded  from  yet  below  them 
and  attacked  the  land  batteries  from  in  front,  and  only  a  few 
hours  after  we,  paroled  prisoners  of  war,  were  landed  in  the 
fort. 

We,  paroled  boys,  could  do  nothing,  nor  could  we  leave 
the  fort,  being  informed  that  it  was  invested  on  the  east  and 
north  sides  as  well  as  below.  We  had  only  to  stand  and  take 
it,  non-combatants  that  we  were,  not  allowed  to  lift  a  gun  in 
our  own  defense  and  expecting  at  any  minute  an  assault  that 
would  put  to  death  every  man  found  behind  the  breastworks. 
Negroes  fought  only  under  the  black  flag.  They  expected  no 
quarter  if  captured,  therefore  gave  none.  It  was  universally 
conceded  and  understood  throughout  the  Confederate  army 
that  when  the  negro  ever  gained  advantage  in  a  battle  he 
spared  no  one's  life,  but  massacred  everything  as  they  did  at 
Fort  Donelson  and  at  Melican  Bend,  and  of  which  I  shall  tell 
hereafter. 

I,  in  company  with  two  comrades,  went  to  the  water  bat- 
tery, which  we  were  told  was  charged  to  fire  on  gunboats  that 
might  attempt  to  pass  the  bluff.  We  perched  ourselves  on  the 
ramparts  at  the  side  of  a  Tredgar  Iron  Works  cast  cannon, 
which  was  the  largest  piece  that  had  ever  been  cast  in  the  Con- 


Il6  PRISON    AND    PAROLE. 

federacy  or  the  United  States  at  that  time.  It  was  charged 
and  loaded  with  a  fourteen-inch  solid  shot,  and  being  depressed 
to  an  angle  of  about  twenty  degrees  the  gun  was  filled  all  but  to 
the  muzzle  with  Spanish  moss  to  hold  the  ball  in  and  keep  it 
from  rolling  out. 

It  required  twenty-eight  men  to  man  the  gun.  When  it 
was  fired  it  jumped  back  out  of  its  trunnions,  and  twelve  men 
at  its  breach  were  killed  instantly.  I  was  watching  the  effect 
of  the  shot.  The  ball  landed  near  the  opposite  side  of  the  river 
and  did  not  come  within  one-fourth  of  a  mile  of  hitting  the 
gunboat.  This  was  about  one  o'clock  in  the  morning.  We 
heard  the  musketry,  first  the  random  guns  firing,  next  by  com- 
panies, next  by  regiments  and  next  by  brigades,  and  next  our 
little  artillery  land  batteries  commenced  firing. 

The  assault  was  being  made  by  General  Auger's  nigger 
division,  which  came  on  with  rushing  and  yelling  demoniac 
impetuosity,  and  who  gained  the  outer  trench  before  they  com- 
menced firing,  when  our  artillery  commenced  to  play  on  them 
with  canister,  grape  and  chain.  But  few  of  them  got  in  the 
ditch,  which  was  twenty  feet  deep,  twenty  feet  wide  at  the 
top  and  fifteen  feet  wide  at  the  boom,  solid  pancake  clay. 
They  were  heaped  up  in  winnows.  It  was  estimated  that  four 
thousand  eight  hundred  were  killed.  No  retreat  was  sounded 
that  I  heard.  I  have  believed  that  their  officers,  after  starting 
them  in,  retired  to  the  safe  rear. 

The  mortar-boats  stopped  playing  when  the  assault  was 
started.  They  had  been  playing  for  about  three  hours,  land- 
ing ten-inch  shells  inside  of  the  fort  every  one  and  one-half 
minutes  during  that  time.  It  was  a  dark  night.  They  were 
below  in  a  cove  in  a  bend  of  the  river.  Whoever  has  witnessed 
a  vivid  electric  storm  on  a  dark  night  can  imagine  the  flashing 
of  those  mortars,  and  then  looking  up  in  the  air  a  mile  or  more 
you  could  see  the  fiery  tails,  the  burning  fuse  of  those  bombs 
which  fell  with  such  force  as  to  make  holes  in  that  clay  ground 


PRISON    AND    PAROLE.  1 17 

fifteen  or  eighteen  feet,  and  when  one  bursted  in  the  ground  or 
in  the  air  before  it  reached  the  ground  it  brought  about  a  con- 
fusion among  us  paroled  prisoners  of  war  that  can  better  be 
imagined  than  described. 

This  was  one  time  in  battle  that  I  did  not  get  badly  scared, 
for  I  made  up  my  mind  from  the  start  to  take  what  came,  and  I 
expected  nothing  short  of  death,  for  I  had  full  knowledge  of 
the  strength  of  the  negro  corps,  and  I  had  passed  by  the  bat- 
teries and  mortar  fleets  and  I  had  seen  the  army  go  up  on  the 
opposite  side  of  the  river  and  had  heard  of  their  landing  on 
the  Hudson  side  twelve  miles  above  Bayou  Sara,  and  I  knew 
that  the  Federal  force  numbered  nearly  seventy-five  thousand, 
negroes  not  counted.  They  were  provisioned  and  armed  with 
the  latest  death-dealing  implements.  I  also  knew  that  Gen- 
eral Gardner,  who  was  in  command  at  Port  Hudson,  had  only 
three  months  to  fortify  and  prepare  for  an  attack  and  to  pro- 
vision the  fort,  and  that  he  was  short  of  ammunition,  had  no 
field  artillery  and  his  cannon  was  worse  than  nothing — dum- 
mies made  of  big  logs  would  have  been  better — had  no>  guns 
or  small  arms  and  had  but  twenty-two  hundred  men,  rank 
and  file,  supers,  business  and  all,  with  less  than  forty  days' 
rations,  and  they  of  the  very  poorest  sort — just  such  as  no 
Yankee  army  would  stand  by  for  a  dog. 

That  I  was  better  advised  as  to  the  strength  of  the  enemy 
and  of  the  conditions  than  General  Gardner  was  no  one 
doubted,  but  I  never  violated  my  parole  and  trusted  only  in  God 
that  Gardner  had  a  way  out  of  it  and  that  we,  the  non-com- 
batants, might  be  able  to  follow  him. 

The  next  morning  after  this  first  assault  on  Port  Hudson 
the  Federal  General  was  communicated  with  and  requested  to 
go  and  bury  his  dead,  to  which  he  replied  that  "the  dead  might 
bury  the  dead" ;  and  thus  it  was  that  the  iikes  of  him  uses  the 
negro  as  the  Chinese  use  a  stink-pot. 

The  Federal  forces  withdrew  from  above  and  below  and 


Il8  PRISON    AND    PAROLE. 

there  was  no  further  effort  made  to  assault  Port  Hudson  for 
some  weeks,  and  we,  the  Confederate  paroled  prisoners,  were 
allowed  to  depart  as  we  might,  and  but  for  the  two  days'  ra- 
tions that  the  Yankees  had  given  us  there  would  have  been 
great  suffering. 

In  those  days  I  was  what  was  termed  a  runner  and  there 
were  but  few  in  the  army  who  could  walk  to  keep  up  with 
me,  and  when  it  came  to  a  long-distance  run  no  quarter  horse 
could  out-travel  me.  I  had  a  much  better  idea  of  the  geog- 
raphy of  the  country  than  my  compeers  and  comrades.  I 
made  a  rapid  trip  to  and  was  the  first  one  that  crossed  the  Mis- 
sissippi westward,  when  I  was  retaken  by  a  force  of  Federals, 
who  denied  my  parole  and  took  it  away  from  me  and  sent  me 
back  down  to  New  Orleans,  where  but  for  the  influence  I  had 
at  headquarters  I  might  have  been  shot  for  a  spy.  The  of- 
ficer who  arrested  me  was  sent  for,  and  the  first  question  asked 
was  whether  I  had  any  arms  or  not,  and  he  replied  "No." 

He  had  destroyed  my  parole,  but  he  was  required  to  tell 
of  and  about  it  and  identify  a  blank  which  was  produced.  I 
believe  that  I  could  have  shortened  his  days  on  this  earth  had 
I  had  a  chance,  for  I  was  calculating  upon  being  with  the  girl 
I  had  left  behind  me  and  the  first  one  that  I  had  up  to  that 
time.  This  was  a  disappointment  no  one  not  similarly  con- 
ditioned can  appreciate.  Love  and  war  are  not  compatible. 

This  was  my  greatest  disappointment  and  I  was  given  the 
privilege  of  either  taking  the  oath  of  allegiance  or  being  sent 
to  Fort  Dry  Tortugas.  I  elected  the  latter  and  was  sent  to  this 
prison  post  and  my  solitary  den  was  a  rampart,  or  rather  a 
casement,  where  I  was  placed  alone  to  look  through  the  port- 
hole on  the  bay  and  meditate  on  the  past  and  plan  on  the  fu- 
ture, if  I  had  a  future. 

How  to  tell  a  good  army  story  without  putting  in  the  nec- 
essary blanks  to  be  filled  up  is  more  than  I  have  ever  been  able 


PRISON    AND    PAROLE.  119 

to  do,  and  I  prefer  to  tell  it  so  that  it  may  be  understood,  re- 
gardless O'f  what  some  Miss  Nancy  may  say. 

I  was  given  any  amount  of  religious  tracts  to  read  and 
temperance  sheets  and  songs  and  such  like,  which  to  a  soldier 
of  my  condition  of  mind  and  temperament  was  all  else  but  in- 
teresting and  amusing. 

I  was  sitting  in  the  port-hole  one  morning  when  I  heard  a 
voice  I  recognized,  an  old  scout  and  an  all-around  desperado, 
who  years  afterward  died  with  his  boots  on.  This  was  the 
song  he  was  singing : 

"I  don't  care  a  —  for  nobody, 

If  nobody  don't  care  a  —  for  me; 
The  day  may  come  when  I'll  be  out, 

And  on  a  scout; 
And  I'll  bet  my  dollars  one  by  one, 

I'll  make  some  — : Yankee  run." 

I  knew  that  if  I  undertook  to  reply  he  would  know  my  voice 
and  get  me  in  trouble,  so  I  was  mum.  He  was  in  the  second 
or  third  casemate  from  me.  A  man  in  the  next  one  asked : 
"Who  are  you?" 

He  replied  that  he  was  not  telling  who  he  was,  and  asked : 
"Who  are  you?" 

"No  more  than  you,"  came  the  reply. 

I  afterward  learned  that  this  was  Senator  Gwinne  from 
California. 

On  the  third  day  of  July,  which,  was  my  birthday,  a  ship, 
the  steamer  Catawba,  bound  for  New  York,  landed  at  the  fort. 
It  had  on  board  six  hundred  prisoners  of  war  taken  from  New 
Orleans,  and  on  which  I  was  placed  and  taken  through  to 
Fortress  Monroe,  Virginia,  and  from  there  sent  to  City  Point 
and  delivered  under  parole.  We  met  as  we  were  going  up  the 
James  River,  Alexander  Stephens,  going  to  Washington  with 
two  other  Confederates  of  the  Administration  type,  to  treat 
for  peace.  Stephens  and  his  sort  could  not  be  trusted  by  Davis 
and  his  "rule-or-ruin"  crew,  who  did  both. 


I2O  PRISON    AND   PAROLE. 

This  was  the  seventh  of  July.  We  were  told  by  the  Fed- 
erals who  were  guarding  us  that  Lee  had  captured  forty  thou- 
sand of  Meade's  soldiers  at  Gettysburg  and  that  President 
Lincoln  had  sued  President  Davis  for  peace,  and  that  was 
Stephens'  mission.  Do  not  ask  did  we  feel  good  at  this  news, 
for  words  cannot  tell  how  overjoyed  we  were. 

When  we  got  to  Petersburg  the  other  news  reached  us  from 
the  Confederate  side  and  told  that  Lee  had  lost  the  flower  of 
his  army  and  was  retreating  with  but  a  small  portion  of  it; 
that  Vicksburg  had  fallen  on  the  Fourth  of  July  and  that  the 
Confederacy  had  collapsed. 

We  were  taken  to  Camp  Lee  in  Richmond,  where  we  ar- 
rived about  midnight,  about  twelve  hundred  in  all,  with  noth- 
ing to  eat  and  no  water  to  drink  and  no  one  to  give  us  any  in- 
formation. It  was  the  next  morning  early  that  quite  a  num- 
ber of  us  went  down  into  the  city,  where  and  when  we  saw  and 
heard  that  of  which  I  have  given  an  account  in  a  previous 
chapter. 

That  the  Confederacy  was  "busted"  no  one  seemed  to  ques- 
tion, but  all  seemed  anxious  to  know  where  we  were  going  to 
get  something  to  eat.  The  stores  and  all  houses  were  closed 
and  nothing  but  confusion  and  excitement  and  human  wildness 
prevailed  on  every  side.  My  thirst  was  as  great  nearly  as  it  was 
when  I  reached  the  Dead  Man's  Water  Holes  on  our  retreat 
from  New  Mexico. 

We  were  advised  that  the  Commissary  Department  was 
open  to  us.  I  drew  my  rations  without  any  questions,  and  it 
consisted  of  twelve  (all  that  I  could  carry)  big  sea  biscuits. 
They  were  about  six  inches  in  diameter  and  two  inches  thick, 
made  without  salt  or  soda,  kneaded  and  baked  perfectly  dry  and 
hard,  each  weighing  about  one-half  pound  or  more.  I  lived  on 
these  and  nothing  else  for  two  days  and  made  up  for  two  days 
for  which  I  had  had  nothing  to  live  on,  and  methought  and 
thought  of  how  my  ancestors  had  suffered  at  Valley  Forge. 


PRISON    AND    PAROLE.  121 

After  what  might  be  called  the  reorganization  of  the  Con- 
federate army  at  Richmond,  as  related  elsewhere,  from  having 
some  friends  and  distant  relatives  in  Richmond,  to  whom  I 
made  myself  known  and  who  were  high  in  authority,  I  pro- 
cured transportation  to  the  Mississippi  River,  and  while  in  the 
Quartermaster's  Department  at  the  capital  getting  this  trans- 
portation I  met  a  man  whom  I  had  known  in  Texas,  Governor 
Frank  Lubbock,  who  was  the  confidential  and  private  secre- 
tary of  President  Jefferson  Davis.  Lubbock  had  made  a  good 
Governor  in  Texas  and  he  was  universally  liked,  for  he  was 
really  and  truly  a  good  man  and  never  did  an  act  which  dis- 
graced his  State. 

He  had  a  long  talk  with  me  and  took  me  to  his  office.  I 
told  him  of  the  campaign  of  New  Mexico  and  he  was  greatly 
interested  in  what  I  told  him.  I  told  him  of  our  campaign  in 
Louisiana,  of  which  he  was  greatly  concerned.  He  made  me 
acquainted  with  the  Secretary  of  War,  Sedden,  and  by  him  I 
was  introduced  to  President  Davis.  I  was  offered  a  commis- 
sion, the  most  responsible  and  trying  that  was  to  be  given  to 
any  one.  I  told  them  I  was  under  parole.  I  told  them  under 
what  circumstances  I  had  refused  to  take  the  oath  of  allegiance, 
that  I  could  no  more  violate  the  one  than  the  other,  but  that  if 
they  could  arrange  a  cartel  of  exchange  by  which  I  could  be 
liberated  from  this  parole  I  would  accept,  but  with  the  distinct 
understanding  that  I  was  to  be  given  no  commission  as  such. 

I  left  the  next  day  with  the  distinct  understanding  that  a 
special  commissioner  or  dispatch  should  be  sent  to  me  in  Texas 
acquainting  me  of  my  exchange  and  ordering  me  to  duty. 
This  dispatch  reached  me  many  days  too  soon,  for  I  was  just  in 
my  glory  and  was  fixing  myself  to>  take  on  new  obligations  and 
to  change  the  name  of  one  woman  over  to  my  own.  The 
deal  was  deferred  until  a  more  auspicious  condition  offered. 
It  came  and  the  deal  was  consummated. 

We  agreed  to  not  make  the  change,  for  I  told  her  that  the 


122  PRISON    AND    PAROLE, 

war  was  not  going  to  last  much  longer  and  that  I  saw  ahead 
of  me  the  chance  of  my  life,  which  went  under  when  the  block- 
ade runner  Lucy  Gwinne,  to  which  I  have  referred  before,  was 
captured  in  Galveston  by  the  Federal  gunboats. 

I  went  to  McGruder's  headquarters,  where  I  made  myself 
known,  and  I  was  sent  up  to  Shreveport,  Louisiana,  to  the 
commander  of  the  Trans-Mississippi  Department,  General  E. 
Kirby  Smith,  than  whom  our  great  Creator  may  have  made 
others  as  good,  but  none  ever  better  as  a  soldier  and  a  gentle- 
man, and  I  believe  as  perfect  a  Christian  as  ever  commanded 
troops. 

I  was  sent  from  there  to  General  Buckner,  commanding  the 
District  of  Louisiana,  then  at  Alexandria,  and  was  given  or- 
ders to  cross  the  Mississippi  with  dispatches  to>  Richmond. 

Travel  in  those  days  from  Alexandria,  Louisiana,  would 
baffle  description,  for  it  was  go  and  get  there,  horseback  if 
you  could,  but  go,  footing  it  or  swimming  it,  and  lose  no  time. 
I  had  no  guide  and  only  had  a  general  idea  as  to  where  I  would 
strike  the  Mississippi  and  how  I  would  cross  it,  and  then  how 
to  get  from  there  to  Woodville,  Mississippi,  which  was  then 
the  terminus  of  our  railroad  and  the  end  of  our  telegraph 
lines,  which  had  nine  relays  between  there  and  Richmond. 

I  got  my  dispatches  through  by  working  with  the  operator 
all  night  and  the  next  evening  received  reply  to  wait  where 
I  was  twenty-four  hours  and  not  to  come  on  farther  east,  but 
to  prepare  to  go  back  to  Alexandria. 

Scott's  cavalry  were  thick  in  that  country  and  I  did  not 
feel  myself  safe,  so  I  took  to  the  woods,  where  I  remained  until 
the  messages  were  received.  A  good  Confederate,  for  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty  dollars  of  Confederate  money,  one  dollar  in 
silver  and  a  two-dollar  greenback  bill,  brought  me  a  good 
horse,  bridle  and  saddle.  I  always  believed  that  he  was  one 
of  Scott's  cavalry  and  that  he  had  stolen  the  outfit,  but  I  was 
not  asking  questions  in  those  days  when  the  question  of  trans- 


PRISON    AND    PAROLE.  123 

portation  came  up,  especially  one  in  which  I  was  so  deeply  in- 
terested as  in  this  one. 

That  horse  and  I  saw  considerable  service  together,  but 
I  lost  him  through  the  influence  of  the  aforesaid  Scott's  cav- 
alry or  some  other  thief,  and,  though  I  had  money  to  buy,  none 
was  for  sale,  and  I  had  to  foot  it  and  swim  it  and  run  it,  but 
always  managed  to  get  there  on  time. 

While  I  had  much  to  do  with  the  secret  service  of  the  Con- 
federacy, I  knew  much  more  about  it  and  about  what  was  gor- 
ing on  than  I  ever  thought  it  safe  to  tell  any  one,  I  never  al- 
lowed myself  to  be  inveigled  into  acting  the  part  of  a  spy,  for 
I  had  learned  to  mistrust,  doubt  and  suspect  everybody. 

I  never  would  take  a  dispatch  out  of  Richmond  or  receive 
it  from  the  Secretary  of  War  until  I  had  studied  it  and  could 
transcribe  it  verbatim,  giving  him  to  understand  that  his  dis- 
patch, which  was  always  written  on  onion  sheet  paper,  would 
be  either  burned  or  eaten  up  by  met  whenever  I  felt  that  I  was 
getting  into  close  quarters. 


THE  TAINT  OF  RASCALITY. 


When  one  loses  all  faith  and  hope  in  a  cause  that  he  has 
been  engaged  in  and  it  comes  from  his  observing  speculations, 
peculations,  fraud,  deception,  betrayal  of  trusts  and  con- 
fidences, as  well  as  from  incompetency  and  drunken  neglect, 
if  that  one  is  made  of  the  material  or  clay  that  good  people  are 
created  out  of,  he  certainly  becomes  not  only  cold  and  indif- 
ferent, but  all  but  vicious,  and  this  was  about  truly  my  con- 
dition about  this  time,  if  not  before. 

The  ignorant  people  of  the  South,  at  home  as  well  as  in 
the  army — people  who  read  nothing,  who*  heard  no>  one  talk 
except  it  be  one  as  ignorant  as  themselves,  who  had  no  knowl- 
edge of  affairs,  of  the  condition  and  situation  of  the  Confed- 
erate cause — were  the  ones  that  the  Administration  depended 
upon  vastly  more  than  upon  the  ones  who  could  not  be  lied  to 
or  deceived.  I  well  knew  that  along  toward  the  last  there  was 
an  effort  made  to>  do  away  with  me.  Not  that  I  had  betrayed 
any  trusts  or  confidences,  but  that  I  knew  too  much  for  the 
tottering  dynasty,  and,  though  I  had  not  been  making 
any  show  of  my  knowledge,  I  was  called  to  account 
on  more  than  one  occasion  by  whippers-in  of  those  who  began 
to  think  that  I  might  have  my  price,  as  they  had,  and  sell  out 
to  good  advantage  to  the  secret  service  men  of  the  United 
States,  with  whom  they  themselves  had  had  me  have  confer- 
ences, and  of  a  nature  that,  had  a  tenth  part  of  the  loyal  right- 
ing soldiers  known,  the  army  would  have  disbanded.  The 
double  traitors  tried  to  weave  a  web  of  their  woof  around  me, 
as  I  know  they  had  around  two  other  scouts,  but  I  knew  the 
villains  and  was  on  my  guard. 

The  women  of  the  South  were  uncompromising  in  their 

124 


THE   TAINT   OF   RASCALITY.  125 

loyalty  to  the  Confederacy.  They  were  never  allowed  to  know 
the  true  condition  of  affairs.  •  They  were  told  and  believed 
that  there  were  ten  Federals  in  the  field  to  our  one;  that  we 
never  went  into  an  engagement  that  there  were  not  from  two 
to  twenty  times  more  men  on  their  side.  They  listened  to  the 
lying  accounts  given  of  skirmishes  that  were  never  known  of 
on  any  battle  map,  which  were  multiplied  into  battles  in  which 
hundreds  were  killed,  according  to  the  liars'  lies,  and  in  re- 
payment for  these  lies,  told  them  more  often  by  perambulating 
soldiers  of  the  Wort  Adams  and  Scott's  Mississippi  Cavalry 
.sort  than  by  their  own  brothers,  they  would  give  forth  their 
charity,  in  the  way  of  clothing  and  money,  if  they  had  it,  as 
well  as  good  victuals. 

I  remember  one  instance  which  I  will  relate :  Weary  and 
tired  from  long  riding,  coming  from  a  point  on  the  Mississippi 
River  going  to  a  point  on  the  Rio  Grande,  to  do  that  which 
it  seemed  that  no  other  one  could  either  be  induced  to  do  or  had 
sense  enough  to  do,  I  was  traveling  incog.  I  called  at  night- 
fall at  a  plantation  house  for  accommodations.  There  were 
six  ladies  on  the  porch  and  three  men.  They  were  busy  talk- 
ing when  I  came  up.  I  gave  the  negro  a  piece  of  flat  tobacco 
to  attend  to  my  horse  well  before  I  left  him  at  the  gate,  and  it 
was  done.  I  sat  down  on  the  porch,  for  I  looked  like  a  tough, 
character  and  one  incompetent  and  unable  to  entertain  such 
a  beautiful  array  of  ladies. 

I  sat  down  on  the  porch — was  not  invited  to  a  seat.  I 
recognized  the  voices  of  the  three  men.  I  had  met  them  in 
prison  and  knew  them  well.  They  were  paroled  at  the  same 
time  I  was  and  were  still  under  parole.  One  of  the  men  had 
formerly  been  an  editor  of  a  Texas  paper,  printed  in  Bren- 
ham,  Texas.  He  was  a  cunning,  slick  liar.  One  day  in 
prison  I  was  arguing  a  question  with  the  Federal  officer  and 
this  sycophant  came  up  and  listened.  The  question  we  were 
talking  about  was  as  to  the  representation  in  Congress  the 


126  THE  TAINT   OF   RASCALITY. 

lower  house  had  for  the  slaves,  the  Federal  contending  that 
every  so  many  thousand  gave  us  a  Congressman.  There  were 
no  unpleasant  words  used  in  the  conversation  because  I  was 
talking  with  a  gentleman,  who  a  few  days  afterward  acknowl- 
edged that  I  was  right. 

This  fellow,  Ross  (so  he  called  himself,  but  I  shall  always 
believe  that  he  stole  the  name,  which  was  a  noble  one  in  Texas, 
to  make  people  believe  he  was  something),  came  to  me  advis- 
ing me  to  "quit  discussing  this  question  with  the  Yankees," 
for,  said  he,  "don't  you  know  that  the  best  way  is  to  be  goody- 
goody  God  and  also  say  goody-goody  devil  when  you  are  in  the 
way  of  your  enemy,  be  with  him.  That's  the  way  I  da 
Make  them  pay  you  more  for  what  they  want  than  they  will  for 
what  you  may  have,  and  when  you  cannot  sing  a  song  to  suit 
them  tell  them  a  story  to  suit,"  and  a  whole  lot  more  of  this 
sort  of  two-faced,  lying  hypocrisy. 

This  man  was  the  leader  of  the  three  in  the  talk  with  the 
ladies,  and  he  was  a  good  one.  He  was  telling  them  how  the 
Yankees  fed  us  in  prison  and  how  they  treated  us.  And  the 
lies  he  told  were  quite  enough  to  make  any  poor  ignorant  but 
good-hearted  woman  cry.  They  swallowed  in  his  lies  with  a 
crazy  avidity.  He  told  them  how  it  delighted  the  Yankees 
to  go  around  at  roll  call  and  make  us  all  stand  up  under  our 
numbers  against  the  wall  and  then  make  us  face  the  wall  and 
jab  us  with  bayonets,  and  then  how  they  would  make  us  stand 
there  for  hours  at  a  time  until  men  fell  down  from  actual 
prostration,  and  how  they  kept  us  from  getting  drinking  water, 
which  was  as  free  as  the  air.  He  told  how  we  were  chained 
two  and  two  together  and  marched  between  a  file  of  soldiers 
when  they  wanted  to  move  us  from  one  quarter  to  another, 
and  then  told  how  the  fine  viands  and  provisions  that  had  been 
sent  in  by  the  ladies  of  New  Orleans  for  the  benefit  of  our  sick 
were  eaten  by  the  Yankee  officers.  It  would  take  a  page  to  tell 
half  of  the  lies  he  told  these  good,  noble  women. 


THE   TAINT    OF    RASCALITY.  127 

Giving  my  name,  he  told  how  I  had  been  taken  out  two  or 
three  times  and  put  in  the  Parish  Prison  and  had  been 
"thumbed  up"  (tied  up  by  the  thumbs),  but  upon  proving  that 
I  was  a  relation  of  General  Nathaniel  P.  Banks  (a  bigger  fie 
\vas  never  told)  1  was  given  every  possible  consideration  and 
attention,  and  by  reason  of  this  the  ladies  of  New  Orleans 
sent  me  all  of  these  fine  things  for  our  sick,  which  the  Yan- 
kees, right  before  our  face  and  eyes,  spread  out  and  ate  up. 
And  there  I  sat  on  the  porch,  more  like  a  poor,  hungry,  sore- 
footed  tramp,  hearing  all  this  talk  from  an  infamous,  lying 
villain,  who  afterward  at  the  close  of  the  war  turned  "scalla- 
wag"  and  joined  the  Loyal  League  and  was  one  of  the  part- 
ners of  Major  Smith  when  the  town  of  Brenham  was  burned. 

I  held  my  mouth.  After  they  had  all  taken  their  seats  at 
the  table  one  of  the  women  condescended  to  come  out  and  ask 
me  if  I  would  come  in  and  have  some  supper.  Fearing  that 
I  would  be  recognized  I  thanked  her  very  much,  and  would 
she  be  so  kind  as  to  send  me  something  out  on  a  platter,  which 
she  did  in  abundance,  and  my  appetite  and  thirst  were  both  well 
satisfied,  while  I  yet  retained  a  position  where  I  could  hear  all 
that  was  going  on  at  the  table. 

I  had  my  saddle-bags,  saddle  and  blankets  brought  on  the 
porch  and  I  lay  down  to  go  to  sleep,  while  they  occupied  the 
other  end,  listening  toi  the  lies  about  the  cruelty  of  the  Yan- 
kees. The  three  men  were  put  in  the  room  right  opposite  me 
on  the  porch  and  I  heard  Ross  say  to  Lewis,  "Didn't  I  do  them 
up  brown?"  and  ask  if  they  hadn't  better  stay  there  a  whole 
week. 

This  house  belonged  to,  and  two  of  the  women  belonged 
to  the  family  of  Professor  J.  B.  Law,  who  was  the  originator 
and  founder  of  the  female  seminary  at  Plantersville,  Texas, 
whom  to  know  was  to  honor  and  respect. 

I  traveled  on  the  next  morning  and  the  next  night  or  the 
night  after  I  stopped  with  a  old  friend  and  distant  relative,  a 


128  THE   TAINT    OF   RASCALITY. 

man  of  affairs  and  a  Christian,  whom  everybody  loved  and 
whom  everybody  to  this  day  who  was  living  then  remembers. 
I  refer  to  Dr.  Stone  in  Brenham.  "I  told  him  of  the  incident 
which  occurred  at  Professor  Law's  place  and  that  I  wished  that 
he  might  bring  it  around  in  some  way  as  to  let  Ross  know  that 
it  was  I  who  was  sitting  on  the  porch  steps.  Whether  Dr. 
Stone  did  or  not  I  do  not  know,  but  Ross  found  out  all  the 
same.  For  this  and  several  other  similar  lying  offenses,  as 
well  as  joining  the  "Nigger  Loyal  League,"  he  passed  away 
forever  and  forever  from  all  good  people's  memory. 

This  man,  Major  Smith,  to  whom  I  have  referred,  the 
"negro  bureau  agent"  that  burned  Brenham,  Texas,  was  sent 
to  Gonzales  and  Seguin.  Down  on  Peach  Creek  in  Gonzales 
County  some  parties  in  perfect  self-defense  killed  a  negro. 
Smith  fined  them  fifteen  hundred  dollars,  which  they  paid. 
Other  people  who  had  been  thrashing  negroes  were  fined  from 
five  to  one  hundred  dollars,  all  of  which  Smith  fobbed. 

He  came  up  to  Seguin  and  did  the  saqie  way.  A  friend  of 
mine,  who  had  gone  through  with  me  in  New  Mexico,  by  the 
name  of  McLean,  had  a  sawmill  down  on  the  San  Marcus 
River  not  far  from  Gonzales.  He  gave  a  negro  man,  who 
had  insulted  his  family  a  fairly  good  thrashing — ought  to  have 
killed  him.  The  negro  went  to  Gonzales  and  saw  Smith,  who 
promptly  sent  a  file  of  soldiers  after  McLean.  He.  was 
brought  in  and  fined  five  hundred  dollars  and  told  that  he 
would  be  kept  in  the  guardhouse  and  not  allowed  to  talk  to 
any  one  except  to  send  out  word  to  his  friends  until  his  fine 
was  paid.  I  was  one  of  the  first  to  whom  he  applied,  though 
he  was  owing  me  at  that  time.  I  wrote  a  letter  down  to  the 
banker  in  that  place,  a  man  by  the  name  of  Dillsworth,  who 
I  knew  as  an  ultra  out-and-out  secessionist  and  Southern  man 
to  the  core,  one  that  to  doubt,  mistrust,  or  think  could  be  a 
traitor  would  be  to  sin. 

In  this  letter,  besides  asking  that  he  raise  the  money  for 


THE   TAINT   OF   RASCALITY.  129 

me  on  certain  security  offered,  I  let  loose  and  told  him  about 
what  this  Brenham  house-burning-military-saj>traj>Smith 
(which  were  the  very  words  I  used)  had  been  doing  up  in 
Seguin,  just  as  he  had  been  doing  down  there — fining  people 
for  killing  and  whipping  negroes  and  putting  all  the  money 
in  his  own  pocket.  This  villain  Dillsworth  had  a  few  nights 
before  joined  the  Nigger  Loyal  League,  and  he  turned  my  letter 
over  to  this  same  house-burning,  robbing,  thieving  villain, 
who  came  back  to  Seguin  the  next  day  and  I  was  sent  for  and 
my  letter  was  produced  and  shown  to  me,  and  I  was  put  un- 
der guard  and  given  to  understand  that  I  was  going  to  be  sent 
to  General  Kidoo,  then  the  commander  at  Houston,  Texas. 

I  was  plainly  told  that  if  I  wished  to  give  up  one  thousand 
dollars  rather  than  to  go  I  could  do  so,  and  that  if  ever  I  was 
known  to  open  my  mouth  again  in  this  way  death  should  be  my 
portion,  and  as  a  further  evidence  of  good  faith  on  my  part 
I  was  to  parole  myself  to  him  not  to  go  farther  than  six  miles 
from  Seguin  without  his  written  authority.  I  had  business 
which  called  me  to  all  parts  of  the  State.  I  did  not  go  to  Ki- 
doo, for  I  well  felt  that  he  was  a  full  partner  with  whom 
divvies  were  being  made. 

Now  for  any  honest  man  to  look  over  this  field  with  me 
would  be  to  agree  that  the  people  of  the  South  are  the  most 
imposed  upon  and  long-suffering  people  on  earth  or  they  would 
not  have  allowed  such  men  as  Dillsworth — and  there  were 
thousands  of  this  sort  all  through  the  country — to  live  a  day  in 
the  State  after  it  was  restored  into  the  Union. 

These  very  men  are  at  the  head  of  politics  in  the  South 
today.  They  own  its  wealth  where  they  do  not  control  its  pol- 
itics. I  made  an  estimate  of  the  amount  of  money  that  these 
"negro  bureau  Loyal  League"  agents  took  out  of  four  counties 
from  fines  imposed  and  it  amounted  to  nearly  three  hundred 
thousand  dollars. 

These  were  the  days  of  the  Reconstruction,  when  the  negro 


130  THE   TAINT    OF   RASCALITY. 

had  been  enfranchised  and  such  thieves  as  Smith  sent  out  by 
the  United  States  Government  to  organize  them.  Oh,  it  won't 
do  to  say  that  the  Right  Rev.  O.  O.  Howard  (he  of  the  Negro 
Bureau  fame)  knew  anything  about  this  (and  I  do'  not  really 
think  he  did) — into  Loyal  Leagues,  charging  them  five  dol- 
lars each  for  the  same  and  making  them  pledge  themselves  to 
stand  by  the  bureau  agents  and  to  report  to  them  all  acts  of 
disloyalty  on  the  part  of  their  late  masters,  and  to  come  with 
all  complaints  as  to  bad  treatment  or  mistreatment  or  whip- 
pings. 

When  the  negro  saw  his  old  master  or  his  employer  fined 
from  five  to  five  hundred  dollars,  he  naturally  thought  that  he 
was  going  to  get  some  oi  it,  but  the  bureau  agent  always  told 
him  that  that  went  into  the  Government  fund  to  be  divided  out 
among  the  negroes  when  they  drew  their  forty  acres  and  a 
mule.  All  of  which,  the  negro  believed  to  such  an  extent  that 
many  of  them  would  have  actually  died  for  the  belief. 

I  was  running  quite  an  extensive  cotton  plantation  at  this 
time.  Going  home  one  morning  about  ten  o'clock,  from  quite 
a  distance  off  on  a  hill,  I  saw  that  all  of  the  plows  were  stand- 
ing in  the  fields  when  they  should  have  been  running.  The 
grass  and  weeds  were  getting  away  with  the  cotton  very  fast, 
and  not  a  hand  was  at  work. 

Every  negro  had  unhitched  the  mules  and,  averaging  two 
on  the  back  of  each,  went  to  the  town,  six  miles  off,  to  re- 
ceive new  degrees  in  the  "Loyalty  League,"  as  they  called  it, 
and  to  be  informed  as  to  when,  where  and  how  they  were  go- 
ing to  draw  their  "forty  acres  and  their  mule."  My  mules 
were  kept  tied  up  to  the  fences  and  the  trees  in  the  town  forty- 
eight  hours  without  anything  to  eat  or  drink,  while  these  lying, 
peculating,  accursed  "carpet-baggers"  and  "scallawags"  were 
lying  to,  deceiving  and  misleading  the  poor  ignorant  negro. 

Here  again  I  would  suggest  to  every  one  of  my  readers  to' 
buy  a  copy  of  "The  Leopard's  Spots"  and  read  it. 


THE   TAINT    OF   RASCALITY.  13! 

The  South,  then  more  than  now,  was  overrun  with  office- 
seekers,  a  class  of  men  who  were  too  lazy  to  make  an  honest 
living,  and  who,  in  fact,  could  not  make  an  honest  living  for 
themselves.  By  demagogism  and  talking  to  the  people  they 
could  get  an  office  and  then  get  it  split  so  that  they  could  make 
a  branch  for  their  son  and  then  get  the  Legislature  to  increase 
taxation  by  urging  them  to  draw  high  pay  (back  wages,  if  you 
please)  until  today  the  South  is  paying  anywhere  from  ten  to 
one  hundred  per  cent  more  than  they  did  fifty  years  ago. 

The  men  who  were  elected  to  the  Legislature  in  the  South 
in  the  days  of  the  reconstruction  were  the  ones  who  got  the 
piles  of  boodle,  just  as  has  many  a  Congressman  made  his  stake 
in  Washington. 

Were  the  truth  to  be  known  as  to  why  the  Panama  Canal 
scheme  had  not  gone  through  twenty  years  ago,  it  would  re- 
sult in  so  many  good  Democratic  Congressmen  having  to  show 
up  that  a  revelation  might  be  made  to  some  people.  The  wise 
man,  however,  would  say,  "What  odds  makes  that?  That 
same  man  can  go  and  talk  to  them  and  they  will  all  vote  for 
him  for  office  next  time,  and  possibly  half  of  all  the  voters 
would  say,  'He  only  did  what  I  would  have  done  had  I  been 
there.'  " 

This  state  of  affairs  does  not  prevail  anywhere  in  the  most 
prosperous  States  of  the  Union.  The  people  would  not  sub- 
mit to  it.  For  a  while  this  class  gained  power  in  our  larger 
cities,  but  they  were  soon  sent  to  the  penitentiary  and  nothing 
more  heard  of  them. 

The  man  who  does  not  do*  his  own  thinking  on  all  matters 
and  subjects  and  questions,  and  especially  on  those  respect- 
ing his  Government,  but  allows  another  to  think  for  him  and 
dictate  to  him,  or  at  least  tell  him  how  to  vote  and  act  and  who 
to  vote  for,  is,  in  my  opinion,  not  a  fit  subject  to  be  allowed  to 
live  in  our  country  and  should  be  exiled  to  Russia. 

Who  that  undertakes  to  tell  me  that  it  is  the  grog  shop 


132  THE  TAINT  OF  RASCALITY. 

that  runs  our  politics  makes  a  poor  show  for  himself  and  his 
neighbors.  In  days  gone  by,  but  in  this  respect  I  hope  not  be- 
yond recall,  the  men  who  sought  an  office  was  looked  upon  as 
little  better  than  a  pauper  and  was  the  very  man  who  would 
never  get  it.  The  day  is  again  coming  when  the  office  is  going 
to  seek  the  man,  and  when  that  day  comes  in  the  South  then 
affairs  political,  financial,  social  and  religious  down  there  are 
going  to  so  change  that  the  old  "scallawag"  and  office-seeking, 
public-crib-eating,  cunning  ones  will  be  relegated  to  the  past, 
and  the  sound  of  joy  will  be  heard  in  all  the  land. 

As  an  illustration  of  the  average  intelligence  of  the  average 
half  negro  and  half  white  district  in  the  South  I  will  relate  an 
occurrence: 

Some  years  back,  when  the  question  of  the  free  coinage  of 
silver  was  all  the  go>,  I  was  traveling  in  the  South,  no  matter 
where — not  that  I  am  afraid  to  tell  it,  but  because  the  same 
Jack  would  again  jump  out  of  the  pot,  I  don't.  I  was  impor- 
tuned to  make  a  speech,  and  I  may  acknowledge  that  I  was 
more  of  a  silver  man  than  I  was  a  gold  bug,  but  wishing  to 
size  up  my  audience  before  starting  out,  I  requested  that  the 
bandmaster  or  the  toastmaster,  the  presiding  genius  of  the 
meeting,  should,  first  and  before  I  spoke,  explain  to  the  people 
what  sixteen  to  one  meant.  I  knew  my  old  blatherskite,  the 
orator  of  the  day,  who  was  always  either  holding  some  little 
office  or  running  for  some  large  one,  would  make  the  explana- 
tion the  people  wanted,  at  least  as  he  understood  they  wanted 
it.  So  up  he  jumped  and  in  substance  said : 

"More  for  the  information  of  the  gentleman  who  is  our 
•visitor  here  to-night  than  any  of  you,  I  ivill  explain  that  sixteen 
to  one  means  that  every  time  the  United  States  Government 
mint  coins  one  dollar  in  gold  tliat  it  shall  coin  sixteen  dollars  in 
silver."  And  down  he  sat. 

And  in  rising  what  had  I  to  say  ?  My  only  reply  was  that 
"I  had  come  here  to-night  remembering  the  Scriptural  in  June- 


THE   TAINT   OF   RASCALITY.  133 

tion  that  I  should  not  think  of  what  I  would  say  when  I  was 
brought  before  the  King,  but  that  words  would  be  put  into 
my  mouth,  and  remembering  this  injunction,  my  fellow  citi- 
zens, I  have  relied  upon  your  President  and  Chairman  to  do  so, 
and  he  has  done  it  so  effectually  that  I  can  say  no  more," 
And  I  sat  down  and  said  no  more  and  that  too  amidst  a  shout- 
ing, hurrahing  crowd.  I  might  as  well  have  undertaken  to  talk 
an  Arabian  of  the  desert  away  from  the  Mohammedian  faith 
as  to  enlighten  the  people  before  me,  and  had  I  started  in  I 
would  have  been  hissed  down  and  called  all  sorts  of  bad  names. 

The  people  who  were  before  me  had  been  told  of  the  mil- 
lions and  millions  of  dollars  in  gold  pieces  produced  by  the 
mines  of  the  United  States,  and  if  I  remember  right  they  had 
been  told  that  it  was  something  like  eight  hundred  million 
dollars  a  year.  Now  to  multiply  this  eight  hundred  million 
by  sixteen,  then  the  people  would  have  one  hundred  and  twen- 
ty-eight billion,  besides  the  eight  hundred  million,  which  would 
make  one  hundred  and  thirty-six  billion  each  and  every  year 
to  distribute  among  the  people  of  the  United  States,  and  this 
was  what  killed  the  poor  greenbackers  and  their  craze,  and 
why  we  have  never  heard  anything  of  it  since. 

Methought  while  I  was  facing  this  crowd  of  a  fence  I  had 
once  built  out  of  very  crooked  persimmon  poles  and  was 
brought  to  task  by  a  man  who  wanted  to  know  how  it  was  that 
I  had  not  built  a  fence  out  of  straight  rails.  I  asked  him  how 
old  he  thought  those  poles  were.  He  said  they  were  a  tree 
of  very  slow  growth  and  possibly  they  were  three  hundred 
years  old.  I  then  asked  that  if  it  took  God  Almighty  three 
hundred  years  to  make  them  as  crooked  as  they  were,  how 
many  years  did  he  suppose  it  would  take  me  to*  make. straight 
rails  out  of  them. 

Now  the  proposition  clearly  before  me  in  facing  this  audi- 
ence, which  was  the  audience  of  the  South  at  that  time,  and 
it  is  no  better  at  this  time,  was :  A  community  of  people  of 


134  THE   TAINT    OF   RASCALITY. 

such  profound,  dense,  besotted  and  accursed  ignorance,  and 
that  too  in  a  free  and  enlightened  country  like  this,  what 
could  I  or  any  one  else  do  in  the  way  of  enlightening  them? 
Might  as  well  undertake  to  turn  the  current  of  the  mighty 
Mississippi  with  a  sail  cloth. 

These  people  had  been  educated  by  their  political  leaders, 
who  absolutely  and  practically  made  them  believe  anything 
and  kept  them  in  this  profound  and  dense  ignorance  in  order 
that  they  might  handle  them  the  better.  Take  the  great  public 
educator,  the  newspapers,  and  especially  the  local  ones  in  the 
South.  Ninety  per  cent  of  the  reading  is  patent  plate  matter 
that  is  printed  in  twenty  or  fifty  thousand  other  papers  just  as 
in  it,  and  the  other  ten  per  cent  made  up  of  the  most  sillysally 
dribble  and  patent  medicine  or  whisky  shop  notices,  while 
the  paper  itself  is  filled  up  with  all  sorts  of  advertisements. 
Fit  food  for  the  fools  who  patronize  it !  Of  course  these  papers 
are  not  read  by  the  men1  of  affairs  in  the  South,  and  very  little 
attention  or  consideration  is  paid  them  by  the  local  political 
"graft,"  and,  thank  God  not  all  the  people  can  or  do  read 
them. 

No  wonder  that  the  South  is  always  solid  Democratic. 
No  more  to  be  wondered  at  than  that  the  ignorant,  blood- 
thirsty, cruel  Bazooks  of  the  Arabian  desert  are  Mohamme- 
dans, who  insist  that  the  more  cruelly  they  treat  a  "Christian 
dog,"  as  all  Christians  are  termed  there,  the  more  sure  they 
are  of  eternal  rest  in  the  land  beyond.  No  Ephraim  was  more 
joined  to  his  idols  than  are  the  people  of  the  South  joined  to 
theirs  and  to  the  hand  that  smote  them.  And  it  is  the  same 
hand  which  still  smites  them. 

Many  people  of  fairly  good  information  have  expressed 
their  surprise  to  me  that  the  South,  and  especially  Georgia  and 
Texas,  had  gone  so  overwhelmingly  in  favor  of  local  option. 
They  supposed  that  this  meant  'no  whisky  sold  in  the  country, 
and  they  are  right,  but  you  see  it  is  this  way:  Some  big 


THE   TAINT    OF   RASCALITY.  135 

wholesale  whisky  dealers  and  distillers  in  Atlanta,  Macon, 
Augusta,  and  Savannah,  and  in  Houston,  Galveston,  San  An- 
tonio, Austin,  Dallas  and  Marshall,  could  well  .afford  to  hire 
all  the  big  popgun  preachers,  temperance  spouters,  sky  pilots 
and  influential  politicians  and  noted  windbags  and  other  men 
of  influence  to  go  and  camp  in  a  body  in  a  country  and  whoop 
it  up  to  the  dear  people  and  the  good  women,  and  all  being 
done  in  the  name  of  Democracy,  local  option  and  prohibition, 
would  carry  like  a  flash,  for  no  Democrat  would  dare  vote 
against  it. 

Possibly  there  had  been  five,  or  for  the  matter  of  that  fifty, 
saloons  before,  that  had  paid  a  State  license  of  fifty  dollars, 
a  county  license  of  fifty  dollars  and  possibly  a  corporation 
license  of  one  hundred  dollars,  which  went  to  support  the 
Government  and  would  to  that  limit  relieve  the  burden  of  the 
poor  downtrodden  tax-payer,  the  owner  of  small  homes  and 
farms.  Now  what  was  the  result?  Mr.  Wholesale  Liquor 
Man  sold  whisky  which  cost  him  seventy-five  cents  a  gallon 
for  two  dollars  and  fifty  cents,  adding  twenty-five  cents  for 
the  jug  and  twenty-five  cents  to>  the  local  express  or  railroad 
agent  for  transportation  to  and  empty  jug  back,  and  pay  some 
one  else  twenty-five  cents  extra — just  as  likely  a  magistrate 
or  constable — for  his  trouble  in  handling  the  order,  and  the 
result  was  that  in  these  States  to-day  I  give  it  as  my  honest 
belief  from  questioning  and  from  close  observation,  there  are 
from  two  to  five  times  more  and  three  times  worse  poisoned 
whisky  being  drunk  by  the  people  than  ever  before.  A  whisky 
trust  is  thus  formed  in  states  that  declare  the  loudest  against 
trusts  and  monopolies. 

The  smart  ones  laugh  at  the  fools  and  how  cunningly  they 
fooled  the  people  and  the  poor  ignorant  people  who  never  did 
drink  any  whisky,  for  they  never  had  any  money  to  buy  it, 
and  who  didn't  know  anything  that  was  going  on,  and  didn't 
care  much  anyhow,  and  made  them  think  that  the}7  have  done 
a  wonderful  thing  in  making  their  country  go  temperance. 


136  THE  TAINT   OF   RASCALITY. 

Some  years  ago  I  was  largely  interested  in  a  mail  order 
medicine  vending  enterprise  which  sold  anything  from  plasters 
for  the  heel  and  for  the  head  to  pills  that  make  the  hair  grow. 
Our  folks  did  a  lot  of  advertising.  I  noticed  that  there  were 
certain  sections  of  the  United  States  where  there  was  from  one 
to  one  hundred  times  more  Jamaica  ginger  used  than  was 
used  in  other  sections.  The  reason  was  easy  to  be  found. 
They  were  all  prohibition  counties,  and  it  was  in  these  that 
we  sold  the  greatest  amount  of  chlorides  and  other  similar 
make-drunk-slow-but-easy  and  brain-cursing  health-destroyers 
and  slow  death-dealing  decoctions. 

Rather  than  to  be  a  party  to  the  nefarious  deal  I  quit  the 
business.  I  am  a  believer  in  fates  and  I  believe  that  there 
is  a  fate,  fairly  worse. than  any  orthodox  hell,  which  awaits 
any  man  or  woman — believe  it,  dear  reader,  as  much  or  as 
little  as  you  may,  but  you  may  live  to  believe  it  more  than  I, 
if  possible — who  would  for  selfish  gain  do  that  which  would 
bring  injury  to  another.  If  there  is  no  fate  which  deals  this 
way,  then  I  have  lived  a  life  of  close  observation  to  be  wrongly 
educated. 

I  can  look  back  from  the  mount  on  which  I  now  stand, 
over  and  across  the  plains  which  I  have  journeyed,  and  I  can 
point  out  the  unmourned  and  unmarked  graves  of  tens  and 
tens  of  thousands  of  men  who  observed  not  the  laws  of  God 
or  nature,  but  who  by  selfish  gain  prostituted  manhood  and 
sold  their  souls  for  less  than  a  mess  of  pottage.  It  is  the  ac- 
cursed soul  destroyer,  the  polluter  of  our  public  morals  and 
integrity,  either  in  the  forum,  the  pulpit  or  the  teacher's  chair, 
who  will  teach  that  all  men  who  have  acquired  wealth  have 
done  it  through  dishonest  methods,  through  treachery  or  be- 
trayal of  trusts,  rascality,  deceit  or  fraud. 

This  class  of  people  who  thus  acquire  wealth  are  the  ex- 
ception to  the  rule,  and  only  goes  to  make  the  rule  good.  But 
where  one  can  be  shown  to  have  lived  to  old  age,  enjoying  his 


THE   TAINT   OF   RASCALITY.  137 

accumulated  wealth  and  leaving  it  behind  him  to  a  quiet  family 
division,  tens  of  thousands  can  be  shown  who  in  dying  curse 
the  world  and  all  mankind,  and  whose  curses  stain  the  very 
ground  over  which  they  had  walked.  And  who  dares  to  say 
nay  to  this  proposition? 

The  wealth  of  the  South,  to-day  is  in  its  institutions,  largely 
owned  by  Jews  and  foreign  corporations.  It  has  been  said  that 
scientists  and  statesmen  and  great  men  for  ages  have  contem- 
plated how  civilization  might  be  advanced  without  making 
the  rich  richer  and  the  poor  poorer.  And  we  see  this  question 
more  practically  answered  in  the  Southern  States  where 
Democracy  rules  supreme,  than  in  any  other  part  of  our  en- 
lightened and  free  Government,  excepting  in  the  dives  and 
dens  and  lowest,  ignorant,  depraved,  vulgar  and  vicious  parts 
of  our  great  cities  where  the  same  ilk  of  politicians  do  their 
fine  work. 

The  man  who  brings  into  his  family  a  vile  political  paper, 
a  paper  full  of  insulting,  ridiculous  pictures,  Police  Gazette 
sort,  a  paper  which  is  full  of  accounts  of  scandals  and  rascali- 
ties, is  a  man  who  may  well  expect,  if  he  lives  to  an  old  age,  to 
see  its  baleful  influence  upon  those  whom  he  has  been  instru- 
mental in  raising  and  educating. 

I  have  often  said,  and  I  now  know  it  to  be  true,  that  if  any 
man  will  talk  with  me  on  any  given  subject  for  a  short  while, 
I  can  tell  what  paper  he  reads,  and  it  has  always  occurred  to 
me  as  being  singular  that  any  man  will  allow  any  other  man 
to  make  for  him  his  decisions  and  opinions  on  any  subject.  I 
have  no  more  of  a  respectable  opinion  of  such  men  in  these 
United  States  than  I  have  for  the  low-down,  depraved,  igno- 
rant, vicious  Mexican  bull,  cock  and  dog  fighter. 

These  people  were  so  raised,  so>  educated  and  trained,  and 
so  kept  by  their  rulers.  They  are  not  allowed  to  know  any 
better,  and  they  all  belong  to  the  same  church,  just  as  the  poor, 
deluded  people  of  the  South  all  belong  to  the  same  political 
party. 


LOUISIANA  RUM,  RUM,  RUM. 

When  one  looks  back  at  an  event  which  occurred  so  nearly 
half  a  century  ago,  as  did  the  things  about  which  I  am  writing, 
and  when  writing  from  memory,  as  I  do,  at  times  many 
notable  occurrences  become  shady,  foggy,  and  to  be  viewed 
with  doubt  as  to  the  actual  dates. 

After  the  battle  of  and  the  retaking  of  Galveston  Island 
and  city,  January  first,  1864,  we  were  marched  back  through 
Texas,  north,  where  on  April  fourteenth  we  met  Banks'  army 
of  invasion  near  Shrevesport.  He  came  up  Red  River  on  all 
sorts  of  crafts,  sixty-five  or  seventy  thousand  strong.  He 
was  weak  in  cavalry  and  not  strong  in  field  artillery.  The  first 
battle  had  was  at  Mansfield,  Louisiana,  where  we  met  his 
advance  division  and  after  a  first-class  skirmish,  our  loss  being 
four  hundred  killed  and  nearly  six  hundred  wounded,  the 
Federals  retreated  to  Pleasant  Hill,  where  on  the  evening  of 
the  fifteenth  of  April  we,  forty  thousand  strong,  being  rein- 
forced by  Churchill's  Missouri  Division,  and  Banks  being 
reinforced  by  the  celebrated  General  A.  J.  Smith's  fighting 
corps  from  the  Army  of  Tennessee,  met  in  very  earnest  in 
battle  array.  . 

The  battle  commenced  about  three  o'clock  p.  m.  I  was 
with  the  dismounted  Texas  Cavalry  on  our  right.  Our  in- 
fantry had  engaged  the  enemy  on  the  main  road,  where  the  next 
morning  I  rode  over  the  dead  bodies  of  two  hundred  and 
twelve  of  the  three  hundred  and  twenty  New  York  Zouaves. 
They  were  dressed  in  red  and  were  a  shining  mark  for  our 
riflemen.  Few  of  them  got  within  twenty  paces  of  our  rail 
fence  breastworks. 

A.  J.  Smith's  corps  was  sent  to  the  left  and  faced  the  dis- 

138 


LOUISIANA  RU,M,  RUM,   RUM.  139 

mounted  Texas  Cavalry,  who  were  in  a  ravine  behind  a  high 
eight-rail  staked  and  ridered  fence.  Churchill's  Division  of 
Missouri  Infantry,  all  stalwart  men  in  size,  were  marched 
through  our  ranks  going  to  the  front,  we,  for  the  first  time, 
playing  the  part  of  a  support.  They  had  come  in  from  the  In- 
dian Territory  and  stopped  long  enough  in  Shrevesport  to 
empty  our  quartermasters'  supplies  and  had  taken  all  of  the 
good  clothing  that  was  intended  for  our  division  of  cavalry, 
and  which  we  needed  very  badly;  for  we  never  received  a 
stitch  of  clothing  from  that  great,  good  and  generous  Con- 
federate Government  that  you  may  have  heard  someone  talk 
about.  These  Missourians  positively  refused  to  go  to  the 
front  unless  our  clothes  were  issued  to  them  in  Shrevesport, 
both  of  which  and  whom  arrived  there  the  same  day. 

As  these  Missourians  went  through  our  ranks  they  were 
feeling  good.  We  were  feeling  tired  and  hungry  and  were  all 
but  naked,  and  possibly  someone  had  said  something  to  them 
as  they  came  up  to  the  effect  that  they  had  stolen  our  clothes. 
Anyway  they  were  loud-mouthed  and  were  making  all  sorts  of 
fun  of  us  lying  down  in  a  ravine  which  they  had  to  crawl  down, 
crawl  up  and  then  crawl  over  to  the  higher  fence  along  on  its 
bank.  They  were  all  armed  with  the  best  of  new  Enfield 
rifles  just  received  from  England  via  Mexico.  These  they 
would  shake  in  the  air  and  tell  us  in  their  own  peculiar  brag- 
gadocio way,  "We'll  show  you  Texans  how  to  fight.  We'll 

show  you  how  to  doi  up  the Yankees,"  and  a  thousand  and 

one  similar  expressions,  while  we  looked  on  and  listened, 
knowing  well  that  something  was  going  to  be  doing  very  soon. 

They  got  over  the  fence  and  partly  formed  in  line.  There 
was  no  enemy  in  sight.  The  order  was  given  to  "Forward 
march,"  and  they  started  across  the  old  field  possibly  six  hun- 
dred yards  up  a  gradual  ascent.  When  they  got  about  half 
way  up  General  A.  J.  Smith's  twelve  regimental  flags  were 
raised  and  six  bands  commenced  playing  and  some  eight 


I4O  LOUISIANA   RUM,  RUM,   RUM. 

thousand  men  marched  up,  twelve  pieces  of  artillery  being 
pushed  in  front  of  them.  It  all  came  within  half  a  minute's 
time. 

Their  bayonets  and  burnished  armors  looked  like  a  million 
mirrors  reflecting  from  the  hot  and  brightening  sun,  and  bands 
that  sounded  as  never  bands  had  ever  before  sounded  to  us 
made  one  of  the  grandest  battle  scenes  I  had  ever  seen,  and 
I  believe  that  no  man  ever  saw  a  more  striking  one.  The  dis- 
play of  men,  their  arms,  their  bright-shining  cannon,  the  flags, 
the  sound  of  that  Yankee-doodle  tune,  made  my  heart  feel 
very  queer. 

Our  Missouri  men  got  about  half  way  up,  and  I  can  hear 
the  sound  ringing  in  my  ears  at  this  time,  if  it  were  possible, 
repeating  down  the  Federal  lines,  "Forward,  march!"  And 
then  came  the  word,  "Fire!"  The  sound  of  that  musketry 
shook  the  earth,  and  it  had  scarcely  died  away  when  that  same 
voice,  repeated  over  and  by  one  hundred  subalterns,  com- 
manded, "Fall  back!"  And  the  artillery  bugles  sounded  and 
in  an  instant  the  fourteen  pieces,  ten  twelve-pound  guns  and 
four  twenty-four  pound  howitzers,  fired.  The  trees  around  us 
quaked,  the  earth  shook,  the  sunshine  was  dimmed  by  battle 
smoke,  and  death  seemed  to  be  our  doom. 

The  pieces  of  both  infantry  and  artillery  were  elevated  so 
high  as  to  go  over  the  heads  of  the  Missourians  and  landed  in 
our  rear  about  one  mile,  where  the  shot  fell  in  among  our 
horses.  There  were  no  orders  given  to  the  Missourians  to 
retire,  nor  had  they  been  told  to  leave  their  guns  on  the  battle- 
field. It  was  with  only  one  spring  that  any  Missourian  suc- 
ceeded in  getting  over  that  fence.  It  was  while  they  were  doing 
this  that  the  Federals  made  a  better  aim  and  killed,  as  I  remem- 
ber, about  eighty  and  wounded  about  two  hundred.  The 
Missourians  went  on  over  us  and  then  it  was  our  time. 

We  told  them  that  they  were  not  only  thieves,  but  cowards, 
and  were  running  without  firing  their  guns.  We  had  reference 


LOUISIANA   RUM,   RUM,   RUM.  14! 

to  the  clothing  they  had  taken  from  us  in  Shrevesport,  and  not 
to  the  greater  theft  they  were  about  to  do.  They  ran  on  in 
the  direction  they  had  started  from  and  came  to  our  horses  tied 
in  the  woods,  which  they  took — stole — from  our  guards,  and 
made  fast  time. 

The  Federals,  not  knowing  that  we  were  in  the  ravine, 
drew  back  over  the  hill  and  we  were  ordered  back  to  where  our 
horses  had  been  tied.  We  followed  the  Missourians  that  night 
fourteen  or  fifteen  miles  through  the  woods  toward  Mansfield, 
where  they  had  dismounted  from  off  our  horses  and  sought 
to  sleep  and  dream  away  their  troubles.  Possibly  as  many  as 
two  hundred  Missourians  kept  on  going  and  were  never  heard 
from  again.  The  others  were  of  no  further  use  to  the  Govern- 
ment, for  they  had  no  guns. 

The  next  morning  I  was  found  out  and,  quite  contrary  to 
my  own  feelings  and  inclinations,  was  ordered  to  go  to  the 
front  with  a  flag  of  truce  and  overhaul  the  retreating  Federals, 
which  I  did  sixteen  miles  off  at  what  was  known  as  the 
"Double  Bridges,"  near  Grandicore.  My  message  was  deliv- 
ered to  the  commanding  General,  requesting  ambulances,  sur- 
geons and  supplies,  which  were  promptly  sent.  We  had  no 
supplies  ourselves  and  our  surgeons  were  thus  without  power 
of  operating  and  rendering  service  to  the  wounded.  The  Fed-t 
erals  brought  back  with  them  loads  of  everything  needed  in 
this  line. 

We  had  captured,  three  days  before  at  the  battle  of  Mans- 
field, eighty  or  more  well-loaded  wagons  of  provisions,  which 
was  a  godsend  to  us.  I  remember  that  I  was  a  little  late  at 
the  division,  and  when  I  got  to  the  wagons  all  of  the  light  and 
good  canned  goods  were  gone.  I  fell  back  on  a  twenty-five- 
pound  keg  of  pickled  pigs'  feet  and  went  partners  with  one  of 
my  chums,  who  had  got  a  twenty-five-pound  box  of  crackers. 
I  always  did  like  pickled  pigs'  feet  and  these  were  especially 
spiced. 


142  LOUISIANA   RUM,  RUM,   RUM. 

It  was  given  out  that  I  had  captured  a  bale  of  greenbacks 
from  the  quartermaster's  or  paymaster's  wagon,  and  to  this 
day  many  believe  that  I  did.  It  was  only  a  ten-pound  bale  of 
Killikinick  smoking  tobacco.  Years  since  this  I  was  told  by 
a  man  who  I  knew  was  in  the  battle  that  he  got  away  with  the 
tin  safe  of  greenbacks,  and  he  said  it  contained  seventy-five 
thousand  dollars,  but  as  he  bore  no>  evidence  of  wealth  about 
him  or  around  him  I  passed  it  up  as  a  lie,  though  I  well  know 
he  was  much  above  an  ordinary  thief. 

The  battles  commenced  again  in  a  few  days,  Banks  being 
well  supported  by  his  flotilla  of  transports  and  gunboats,  their 
infantry  being  always  covered  and  protected  in  their  retreat  to 
Alexandria  down  through  the  Old  River  and  Red  River 
country. 

We  prepared  to  give  battle,  and  did,  though  doing  more 
harm  than  good,  before  our  left  was  turned  and  our  right  wing 
was  driven  back  and  our  center  about-faced  and  sent  to  the 
rear,  leaving  the  field  in  possession  of  the  Federals  with  twen- 
ty-six pieces  of  artillery.  We  drew  back  to  what  was  known 
as  McNutt's  Hills,  northwest  of  Alexandria  on  the  old  road 
that  led  from  one  side  of  our  continent  to  the  other  by  way  of 
Alexandria,  Louisiana,  Nacog^doches  and  San  Antonio,  Texas, 
down  to  the  City  of  Mexico. 

The  Federals  fell  back  to  Alexandria,  Red  River  having  so 
fallen  that  the  boats  could  not  shoot  the  rapids  at  that  place. 
By  dismantling  all  of  the  cane  mills  and  tearing  down  many  of 
the  stone  and  brick  buildings  they  built  a  dam  in  the  river  which 
confined  the  channel  to  a  narrow  current,  over  which  they  shot 
their  boats.  This  was  one  of  the  greatest  engineering  feats 
performed  by  either  army  during  the  entire  war.  The  man 
who  engineered  this  dam  construction  afterward  engineered  the 
construction  of  the  Denver  &  Rio  Grande  Railroad  through 
Colorado,  which  up  to  this  date  is  the  greatest  of  its  character 
in  the  world. 


LOUISIANA    RUM,   RUM,    RUM.  143 

The  Federals  were  detained  at  Alexandria  about  six  days. 
They  had  plenty  of  provisions,  but  were  kept  in  compact  quar- 
ters and  there  was  but  little  fighting  done. 

It  was  during  this  retreat  that  Tom  Green  of  the  old 
brigade,  who  had  been  made  a  brigadier  general,  took  the 
Woods'  Texas  regiment  of  cavalry  to  the  edge  of  an  open  field 
and,  after  making  a  little  talk  to  them  about  going  to  show 
them  how  to  fight  Yankees,  he  pointed  to  two  gunboats  on  the 
river — this  was  at  Blair's  landing  on  Red  River.  The  gun- 
boats had  twelve  cannon  on  each  side.  The  water  was  on  a 
level  with  the  top  of  the  levee,  which  was  about  eight  feet 
higher  than  the  field. 

A  charge  on  horseback  was  made  across  this  field  upon 
these  gunboats  lying  well  out  in  the  river.  They  opened  fire 
with  grape  and  canister  and  only  fired  one  side.  Green  was 
killed  well  in  advance,  a  cannon  shot  taking  the  top  of  his  head 
off.  Three  hundred  riderless  horses  ran  off  the  field.  Three 
hundred  Texans  lay  on  the  field  to  answer  roll  call  no  more. 
Four  hundred  escaped — rum,  rum,  rum,  Green  Louisiana  rum, 
rum,  rum. 

In  the  last  year  I  have  been  asked  to  contribute  money  to 
erect  a  monument  to  the  memory  of  this  Tom  Green,  but  no 
one  has  ever  suggested  that  the  three  hundred  who  were  worse 
than  murdered  that  morning  on  that  field,  should  ever  be  made 
mention  of  on  shaft  or  monument. 

From  McNu'tt's  Hill  on  the  morning  that  the  Federal  flotil- 
la went  over  the  dam  at  Alexandria  I  counted  nineteen  sugar 
plantations  burning,  each  of  which  when  in  running  order  cal- 
culating money  on  a  basis  of  five  per  cent  interest,  would  aver- 
age about  from  four  to  six  hundred  thousand  dollars  each. 
There  were  sixty-four  of  these  sugar  plantations  burning  along 
Red  River  and  the  Tache  which  I  counted  myself,  besides  twice 
as  many  more  that  I  did  not  see,  not  one  of  which  was  fired  by 
a  Yankee,  but  by  natives  who  embraced  this  opportunity  of 


144  LOUISIANA    RUM,   RUM,    RUM. 

revenge  on  the  rich  planters  and  their  cruel  overseers,  who  had 
fenced  them  off  from  water  and  had  taken  their  cattle,  as  did 
the  lords  in  the  feudal  days  of  the  dark  ages. 

Our  cavalry — with  whom  1  always  preferred  to  stay  rather 
than  be  doing  scout  work  in  a  country  and  for  folks  I  had  al- 
ready learned  enough  about  to  know  that  no  self-respecting 
person  could  do  himself  justice,  especially  when  it  came  to 
giving  information  ( I  might  have  taken  orders  or  obtained  in- 
formation from  Louisiana  rum,  rum,  rum:) — was  kept  con- 
stantly on  the  gt>,  that  the  Federals  might  not  get  scattered 
over  the  country  and  lost. 

I  was  with  the  Texas  cavalry  at  Williams'  plantation, 
twenty-two  miles  below  Alexandria  as  the  bird  would  fly,  and 
a  much  longer  distance  as  the  boats  would  have  to  go  coming 
around  the  bends.  The  river  had  so  fallen  that  its  surface  was 
about  forty  feet  below  the  top  of  the  levee  on  its  western  bank, 
behind  which  we  had  taken  temporary  quarters.  We  had 
brought  the  identical  gun  that  had  been  captured  on  the  Har- 
riett Lane  in  the  battle  of  Galveston,  the  "bow  chaser,"  a  thir- 
ty-two pound  rifled  piece.  This  was  planted  on  the  water  level 
near  a  short  bend  in  the  river.  We  had  saved  sixty-four  shots 
from  the  Harriett  Lane  for  this  gun,  and  this  was  the  first  time 
and  opportunity  that  presented  for  it  to  make  a  showing,  and 
which  it  did  in  grand  shape  under  the  command  of  my  old 
chum  and  the  best  friend  I  had  in  the  army  and  the  best  man 
there  was  in  the  Confederate  army,  not  even  excepting  myself, 
Lieutenant  J.  C.  Cunningham,  who  was  better  qualified,  able 
and  all-around  gifted  to  have  commanded  the  Trans-Missis- 
sippi Department  than  any  of  the  men  who  did  command  it, 
but  who  took  fiendish  delight  in  turning  Cunningham  down, 
as  most  of  them  did  in  dealing  with  me. 

The  Federal  boats  came  down  the  river,  one  right  close 
behind  the  other,  the  first  four  in  advance  loaded  down  with 
cripples,  convalescents  and  sick,  and  the  mail.  It  was  a  beau- 


LOUISIANA    RUM,   RUM,    RUM.  145 

tiful  sight  to  see  those  boats  coming  round  the  bend,  decked 
with  the  flags  of  our  nation  and  well  banded  with  good  players 
and  blowers  and  horn-tooters.  If  ever  there  was  any  one 
thing  I  did  hate  worse  than  another  it  was  two  toot-horns 
worse  than  one. 

We,  about  twelve  hundred  strong,  lying  behind  the  levee, 
were  a  surprise  to  the  Federals,  who  no  doubt  thought  that 
when  they  got  over  the  dam  at  Alexandria  they  were  as  good 
as  at  home.  We  opened  fire,  which  they  were  ill  prepared  to 
receive,  yet  they  did  it  in  a  most  heroic  and  brave  manner. 
The  Red  River  was  but  a  ditch  and  the  boats  were  right  un- 
der us.  We  could  have  brickbatted  them  to  advantage.  They 
had  scarcely  got  over  their  surprise  at  our  appearing  on  the 
levee  above  them  when  Cunningham  let  loose  a  blue  whistler, 
which  struck  the  spot,  plowing  lengthwise  through  the  front 
boat,  which  was  heading  right  toward  the  muzzle  of  his  can- 
non, bursting  the  boiler  and  creating  havoc  in  all  directions. 
The  boat  swung  round  and  of  course  blocked  the  stream,  and 
the  next  boat  ran  against  it,  and  by  this  time  Cunningham  had 
the  piece  loaded  again  and  it  belched  forth  and  another  boat 
was  busted  up,  and  then  came  the  Hag  of  truce. 

We  ran  the  prisoners  out  to  the  rear  and  captured  a  good 
lot  of  needed  supplies,  for  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  we 
Texans  were  always  hungry.  We  captured  twenty  or  more 
dray  loads  of  United  States  mail,  which  was  sent  to  the  rear. 
Were  I  to  undertake  to  tell  of  what  these  mail  bags  contained 
people  at  this  date  would  say,  to  make  up  for  the  lapse  of  my 
memory  I  had  made  up  a  pack  of  lies.  Before  this  time  I  did 
not  think  there  were  so  many  little  trinkets  which  could  be 
picked  up  around  a  house — many  of  little  or  no  value,  which 
could  be  esteemed  as  souvenirs.  Pieces  of  silk  and  sometimes 
whole  dresses;  bits  of  linen  and  even  Bibles  and  hymn  books 
were  in  this  stolen  pile ;  ivory  piano  keys  were  a  favorite.  Per- 
haps there  was  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars'  worth 


146  LOUISIANA    RUM,   RUM,    RUM. 

of  assorted  silverware  and  ladies'  jewelry.  If  asked  what  be- 
came of  it  I  could  not  tell.  We  had  "lifters"  too. 

Here  at  this  battle  (as  some  called  it  and  as  all  did  who 
wanted  to  make  it  appear  to  the  girls  at  home  that  they  had 
been  in  a  great  fight  when  in  reality  it  was  only  a  little  skir- 
mish; my  idea  of  a  battle  I  early  found  was  quite  different 
from  that  of  most  people,  and  is  even  yet;  but  to  my  story) 
we  had  two  men,  one  of  whom  I  have  already  mentioned — 
the  man  who  said  that  if  he  believed  as  I  did  he  would  cross  the 
Rio  Grande  that  night  when  I  told  him  that  the  war  was  going 
to  last  eight  years  or  longer  and  that  he  need  not  be  afraid  of 
not  being  able  to  get  into  the  battle,  that  the  Yankees  would 
fight  and  that  he  would  get  his  stomach  full  of  them  before  the 
thing  ended.  He  was  a  member  of  a  Committee  of  Public 
Safety  at  home  and  was  the  biggest  blue-eyed  coward  I  ever 
saw,  excepting  one  other. 

The  two  men  messed  together,  H and  B (if  I 

spelled  their  names  out  it  might  be  a  reflection  on  brave  men 

bearing  these  names).  B was  an  old  nigger-driver  and 

a  thorough  blow-hard,  a  brag,  a  white-livered  coward.  These 
two  men  had  never  been  in  a  battle  or  an  engagement  of  any 
sort,  but  always  after  one  was  over  turned  up  with  wonderful 
stories  of  where  they  had  been,  and  on  one  occasion  came  in 
with  bullet  holes  shot  through  their  coats  and  vests,  which  they 
had  hung  up  in  a  tree ;  the  range  of  the  holes  would  have  killed 
them  dead,  and  it  was  a  give-away. 

While  we  were  lying  down  behind  the  levee  waiting  for  the 
Federal  boats  to  come  down,  these  two  men  were  lying  close 
together.  A  lot  of  the  boys  were  watching  them.  When  the 
order  came  to  fire,  of  course  every  man  rose  on  top  of  the  levee 
and  shot  at  an  object,  the  boat  at  least,  while  these  two>  men  lay 
flat  on  their  backs  and  elevated  their  guns,  raising  them  as  high 
as  their  arms  would  reach,  and  fired  on  a  level  with  the  levee, 
seeing  which  the  boys  who  were  watching  them  rushed  on  and 


LOUISIANA  RUM,  RUM,   RUM.  147 

seized  them,  and  running  up  to  the  top  of  the  levee  with  them 
in  their  arms,  screaming  and  yelling  at  the  top  of  their  lungs 
to  the  Federals,  "Shoot  them!  Shoot  them!  Shoot  them!" 

Cunningham's  big  gun  went  off,  and  though  bullets  flew 
like  hail  form  the  boats,  not  one  of  the  party  of  ten  was  hurt. 
It  was  said  that  the  Federals  ran  up  a  white  flag  before  Cun- 
ningham's second  shot  was  fired,  thinking  that  this  running  on 
the  ramparts  with  the  men  in  their  arms  was  a  ruse. 

It  would  have  taken  just  such  heroic  strength  as  this  to 
have  taken  to  battle  any  member  of  the  Committee  of  Public 
Safety,  as  both  of  these  men  were,  and  I  never  heard  of  any 
member  of  the  Committee  of  Public  Safety  in  the  South  dying 
an  honorable  death  in  war  times,  though  many  of  them  might 
have  died  a  natural  death. 

We  had  scarcely  secured  prisoners,  mail  and  the  provisions 
off  the  boats,  which  were  on  fire,  before  the  Federal  infantry, 
ten  times  our  strength,  came  double-quicking  down  the  wide 
plantation  road.  Whoever  tells  you  that  any  five  hundred 
cavalrymen  were  ever  known  to  stand  up  against  any  ten  thou- 
sand infantry  tells  you  a  lie,  and  don't  you  believe  it.  Horses 
were  not  built  for  that  purpose,  and  cavalrymen  know  it. 

We  went  away  from  there.  The  Federals  rigged  up  their 
pulling  machines  and  in  less  than  twenty-four  hours  had  the 
river  cleared  o>f  its  obstruction  and  from  then  on  down  the 
banks  of  the  river  were  well  guarded  by  both  armies,  we  to 
keep  the  Yanks  from  straying  away  and  getting  lost  in  the 
swamps. 

After  this  we  had  many  short  engagements,  and  at  the  bat- 
tle of  Yellow  Bayou  three  hundred  and  eighty  of  our  men  of 
Polanagac's  infantry  division  were  killed  in  an  instant  in,  a 
hopeless  assault  in  obeying  an  order  emanating  from  Louisiana 
rum,  rum,  rum,  hot  and  steaming  from  the  still.  This  Gen- 
eral was  shot  in  General  McGruder's  headquarters  in  Hous- 
ton, Texas,  some  months  after  this  for  his  high-flying  and  do- 


148  LOUISIANA   RUM,   RUM,   RUM. 

ing  a  great  act  of  injustice  toi  a  man  who  was  a  fighter,  a  Chris- 
tian and  a  soldier,  and  of  which  I  shall  tell  later. 

At  Mansura  and  Cherokee  Swamps  we  engaged  the  enemy. 
At  the  latter  place  we  lost  our  heavy  artillery,  known  to  the 
boys  as  the  "bull  battery,"  six  sixty-four  pounders  pulled  by 
oxen — old  siege  guns  that  no  general  worthy  of  the  stars 
would  think  of  wasting  time  with.  Skirmishes  and  small  bat- 
tles were  every  day  occurrences  all  this  summer  in  the  La 
Fourche  country,  and  occasionally  over  on  the  Mississippi 
River,  two  only  of  which  I  shall  write  of  and  about,  and  that 
only  to  show  "what  fools  these  mortals  be"  who  follow  rum, 
rum,  rum. 

One  was  the  attack  made  by  Louisiana  rum,  rum,  rum,  with 
eight  hundred  as  good  soldiers  as  ever  shouldered  a  musket,  on 
a  stockade  of  logs  twelve  feet  high,  double  port-holed,  situated 
behind  a  big  ditch  and  backed  up  by  six  thousand  negro  sol- 
diers armed  with  the  latest  implements  of  war,  and  who  fought 
under  the  black  Hag,  to  reach  which  we  had  to  march  across  an 
open  field  of  six  or  eight  hundred  yards,  every  third  man  carry- 
ing an  ax  and  a  ladder.  The  man  who  would  undertake  such 
a  fight  as  this  should  not  be  allowed  to  live  one  hour ;  but  "war 
is  hell"  and  soldiers  are  sworn  to  obey.  The  man  who  or- 
dered the  assault  was  too  well  rummed,  rummed,  rummed  to 
go  along.  Surely  that  would  be  the  case.  Three  hundred 
and  forty  men  were  killed  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye.  None 
were  wounded ;  all  were  killed.  We  did  not  bury  our  dead. 

The  next  was  the  most  successful  battle  and  raid  that  I 
ever  had  anything  to  do  with,  and  I  only  had  to  do  with  that 
because  I  knew  the  man  who  commanded  it  and  planned  it  and 
that  there  was  no  Louisiana  rum  about  it,  and  I  refer  to  Colo- 
nel J.  C.  Vincent  of  the  Louisiana  cavalry.  We  were  up 
Bayou  Tache  and  La  Fourche  and  getting  very  hungry.  The 
Federals  had  an  immense  supply  depot  on  their  side  of  Bayou 
Atachafalia,  known  as  Burwick's  Bay,  now  as  Morgan  City. 


LOUISIANA   RUM,   RUM,   RUM.  149 

We  actually  and  absolutely  needed  those  supplies,  and  some 
heroic  scouting  done  by  parties  I  need  not  name  settled  the 
fact  that  there  were  only  about  eight  hundred  Federals  guard- 
ing them  and  that  there  were  only  six  hundred  Federals  at  La. 
Fourche. 

We  collected  all  the  "sugar  coolers,"  troughs  two  feet  deep, 
six  feet  wide,  eight  feet  long,  with  flat  bottoms,  in  which  the 
molasses  was  poured  to  cool  and  settle  and  sugar  granulate. 
Six  men  were  put  in  each,  each  man  with  one  paddle,  canoe 
fashion,  when  in  the  water,  and  carrying  their  cooler  as  though 
they  were  carrying  a  coffin  when  "turtling"  it  overland.  Only 
side  arms  were  carried.  There  was  no  moon  on  those  nights 
and  the  tide  no  more  waited  then  for  men  than  now.  Some 
way  above  Morgan  City  we  struck  the  falling  tide  and  took  to 
the  water  like  so  many  ducks,  without  making  any  noise,  for 
our  paddles  worked  underneath  as  a  duck's  foot  does. 

We  landed  at  the  right  spot,  and  without  any  sort  of  excite- 
ment or  noise  we  deliberately  pulled  our  boats  up  on  the  edge 
of  the  bank  above  tide  water  and  quietly  walked  up  to  say, 
"Good  morning,  Mr  Yankee!"  They  got  up  and  beat  their 
reveille  in  our  honor,  it  would  seem,  for  a  more  surprised  set  of 
men  never  lived  on  earth.  We  just  simply  told  them  that  they 
were  ours,  and  putting  the  words  to  action  took  their  guns 
and  told  them  that  we  were  after  grub  and  that  we  had  brought 
no  tobacco  along  to  pay  for  it,  and  that  we  were  not  dealing  in 
Louisiana  rum.  In  other  words,  we  pointed  down  the  rail- 
road toward  La  Fourche  and  told  them  to  git,  and  they  got 
double  quick,  and  a  happier  set  of  men  I  never  saw.  I  refer 
to  the  retreating  Federals.  Depend  upon  it,  we  were  all  right, 
and  furthermore  know  you  that  nothing  went  into  our  little 
boats  to  the  other  'side  of  the  river  in  the  nature  of  Louisiana 
rum.  But  it  was  all  good,  solid,  substantial,  first-class  edibles, 
and  like  beavers  we  worked,  and  before  night  we  had  every- 


I5O  LOUISIANA   RUM,  RUM,   RUM. 

think  on  the  other  bank  that  was.  worth  moving,  with  a  lot  of 
ammunition  and  twelve  hundred  stand  of  arms. 

We  spiked  their  cannon  and  dismantled  a  locomotive,  while 
our  sappers  and  miners  went  back  and  destroyed  a  culvert  or 
two.  We  destroyed  nothing  and  gave  the  citizens  of  the  place 
to  understand  that  we  were  "perfect  Southern  gentlemen." 

Had  the  man  who  commanded  this  expedition  commanded 
the  army  of  New  Mexico,  what  a  great  difference  there  would 
have  been  in  "the  result!  *  *  *  Had  he  have  commanded 
the  Confederate  army  or  any  considerable  portion  of  it,  and 
especially  the  Department  of  Louisiana,  Banks  never  would 
have  gotten  out  of  the  State  and  we  would  not  have  lost  one- 
quarter  of  the  men  we  did  lose.  Dick  Taylor  was  General — 
yes,  indeed,  no  body  doubted  that  surely  he  was.  Was  not  he 
a  brother-in-law  of  our  Government,  Mr.  Jefferson  Davis? 
And  was  it  not  a  fact  that  he  did  not  have  any  very  extensive 
acquaintance  with  people  out  of  Mississippi  from  which  to  se- 
lect generals? 

I  knew  Jeff  Davis  many  times  over  better  than  tens  of 
thousands  of  people  who  had  shaken  hands  with  him  in  their 
day,  or  than  the  millions  or  more  who  were  at  all  times  ready 
to  fall  down  and  worship  him  could  have  ever  known  him..  I 
never  knew  of  any  one  single  public-spirited,  really  noble,  char- 
itable act  the  man  ever  did,  do  you  ?  With  him  it  was  a  case 
of  big  me,  little  you  all  the  time — a  man  of  great  ability  in  cer- 
tain lines;  a  worker  of  men  who  handled  them  as  the  potter 
does  clay ;  a  hypnotizer  of  women. 

That  he  was  a  great  ladies'  man  no  man  who  ever  knew 
him  will  deny.  I  know  that  many  people  rate  him  as  a  states- 
man. On  what  they  predicate  their  rating  I  have  never  been 
able  to  see.  He  was  a  man  of  wonderful  dislikes,  and  I  never 
knew  him  to  have  any  great  likes.  He  was  no  great  thinker 
on  any  subject,  but  did  have  a  very  good  faculty  for  collecting 
the  thoughts  of  others  that  were  good  and  matching  them  up 


LOUISIANA   RUM,  RUM,    RUM.  15! 

and  shaping  them  so  that  his  fellows  thought  they  were  his 
own  children. 

I  saw  considerable  of  him.  I  never  saw  a  smile  on  his 
countenance  nor  heard  a  kind  word  from  him  to  any  one.  His 
public  documents  and  messages  never  had  more  than  a  passing 
remark  to  make  of  any  one,  but  from  first  to  last  were  all  filled 
with  I,  I,  I,  or  the  Government,  the  Government,  the  Govern- 
ment, which  was  the  same  thing,  as  there  was  no  one  around 
or  about  him  that  ever  undertook  to  suggest  anything  only  as 
it  was  done  in  a  round-about,  apparently  careless  way.  He 
was  no  conversationalist,  yet  a  good  entertainer  when  there 
were  ladies  around,  and  a  very  good  listener  when  he  thought 
that  by  listening  he  could  hear  something  which  could  be  put  to 
personal  advantage. 

Few  men  ever  lived  in  a  free  country  like  ours,  of  free 
people  as  we  are  supposed  to  be,  who  had  the  power  of  over- 
awing and  making  others  who  came  into  his  presence  feel  so 
very  small,  and  what  was  worse,  make  them  keep  that  feeling 
up  all  their  lives.  I  never  saw  anything  good  in  the  man 
though  I  tried  to  time  and  again.  He  was  largely  the  prime 
mover  of  secession  and  possibly  was  the  proper  one  to  have 
been  selected  as  the  President  of  the  Confederacy,  but  I  be- 
lieve that  any  common,  honest,  clodhopper  of  a  planter  of  the 
South  who  made  no  pretensions  to'  statesmanship  could  have 
selected  five  hundred  who  could  have  led  the  South  with 
greater  honor  and  credit.  No  one,  aye,  no  one  else  could  have 
done  worse. 

It  is  absolutely  repellant  to  my  idea  of  man's  power  to  say 
or  believe  that  the  South  could  have  been  conquered  as  it  was 
without  being  given  one  iota  of  terms  or  conditions  except  as 
stated  before  were  given  by  General  Grant  at  Appomattox. 

Now,  reader,  supposing  you  had  been  the  President  of  the 
Confederacy;  when  you  plainly  saw  that  it  was  all  day  with 
your  cause  and  you  had  seen  extended  to  you  an  olive  branch, 


I 

152  LOUISIANA   RUM,   RUM,   RUM. 

would  you  have  run  away  from  your  office  and  sought  to  escape 
out  of  the  country  and  leave  your  people  whom  you  had  in- 
volved in  such  troubles  to  their  own  wretchedness?  Even 
supposing  that  if  you  escaped  to  England  you  were  going  to 
get  all  the  money  over  there  for  Confederate  cotton,  estimated 
at  $22,500,000?  Who  did  get  it? 

The  man  who  places  himself  at  the  head  of  any  sort  of  an 
enterprise,  be  it  ever  so  small  or  ever  so  large,  should  in  doing 
so  say,  ''With  it  I  rise;  with  it  I  perish."  Did  Mr.  Davis  do 
so  in  any  one  single  instance?  Can  any  one  show  where  he 
represented  or  in  any  way  engaged  in  any  sort  of  a  move  that 
would  alleviate  the  sufferings  and  the  distress  of  the  people  at 
home,  much  less  the  Confederate  soldier  in  the  field  ? 

I  know  that  there  are  a  lot  of  men,  worshipers  and  syco- 
phants in  the  South  who  think  that  because  the  women  of  the 
South  were  so  infatuated  over  Davis  that  they  should  make 
and  sing  songs  in  his  praise.  The  women  of  the  South  were 
fooled  in  this  matter,  as  in  all  others  in  which  they  were  in  any 
way  wrong.  The  great  and  noble  people  of  the  South,  who 
not  only  loved  their  country,  but  their  neighbor,  never  swal- 
lowed Jeff  Davis.  He  was  forced  on  the  people  by  a  set  of 
ringsters,  politicians,  who  looked  only  for  self  and  spoils,  who 
largely  became  "scallawags"  after  they  had  sold  and  betrayed 
the  South. 

Once  in  about  so  often  we  see  a  piece  going  around  in  the 
Southern  papers  under  different  heads,  but  all  referring  to  the 
prison  life  of  Jeff  Davis,  told  in  such  a  way  as  to  incite  and 
excite  sympathy  with  the  people  of ,  the  South,  regardless  of 
merit  or  truth.  Elsewhere  I  have  referred  to  the  returning 
soldier's  playing  on  the  sympathies  of  the  poor  women  and 
children  at  home. 

That  Jeff  Davis  tried  to  escape  through  and  by  or  under 
a  woman's  garment  was  nothing  for  the  world  to  be  surprised 
at.  In  that  way  he  was  trying  to  get  out  of  the  Confederacy 


LOUISIANA   RUM,  RUM,   RUM.  153 

and  get  away  from  the  people  of  whose  ruin  he  had  been  the 
prime  cause,  instead  of  standing  up  like  a  noble,  brave  and 
chivalrous  man  and  saying  to  the  enemy,  "Here,  take  me!" 

Even  at  the  surrender  of  Lee's  army  at  Appomattox  he 
could  have  called  a  halt  and  brought  about  a  peace  conference. 
Would  you  undertake  to  ask  why  he  did  not  do  it  ?  No  man 
can  answer  and  do  it  at  all  creditably  to  Jefferson  Davis'  name. 

When  I  travel  through  the  South,  as  I  have  in  the  last  few 
years,  and  see  the  condition  of  affairs  down  there,  all  brought 
about  by  reason  of  the  secessionists  deceiving  the  people  and 
financially  betraying  them  and  selling  them  out — no  other  way 
to  account  for  it,  for  there  is  no  man  of  common  intelligence 
today  who  will  undertake  to  say  that  two  and  one-half  million 
fighting  free  men,  with  two  and  one-half  million  bread-pro- 
ducing slaves  (the  negroes  at  home)  could  ever  be  conquered, 
could  ever  be  whipped  by  any  sort  of  numbers  that  might  be 
brought  against  them — I  ask  myself  how  can  any  honest  man 
love  a  secession  Democrat,  and  especially  of  the  Jeff  Davis 
brand. 

The  South  had  the  advantage  of  people  as  well  as  of 
ground.  It  had  the  advantage  of  climate  as  well  as  produc- 
tiveness of  soil.  Shall  we  say  that  it  was  a  decree  of  our 
Creator  that  negro  slavery  should  be  abolished,  that  all  this 
m'ay  be  accounted  for  and  the  South  become  reconciled  to  its 
fate?  Let  the  more  rabid,  deer>in-the-wool  and  skin-dyed  ab- 
olitionist who  ever  lived  go  in  the  South  today  and  say,  if  he 
dares,  but  that  the  condition  of  the  negro  in  the  South  today 
is  many  times  worse  than  it  was  in  the  days  of  slavery,  while 
that  of  the  white  people  is  actually  deplorable  in  many  parts 
of  what  was  once  the  most  lovely  of  all  the  Southern  land. 

I  care  not  who  assails  what  I  have  written.  Truth  is 
mighty  and  will  prevail,  and  will  stand  when  all  falsehoods  and 
deceptions  and  villainies  shall  have  passed  away,  and  by  it  I 
stand,  caring  not  one  iota  for  the  opinion  of  young  men  who 


154  LOUISIANA   RUM,  RUM,   RUM. 

have  not  seen  what  I  have  seen,  or  of  old  men  who,  although 
they  lived  in  the  same  days  with  me,  saw  little  and  knew  less. 
Nor  must  it  not  be  charged  against  me  that  I  am  sore  because 
any  of  my  family  owned  negroes  that  were  freed  and  other 
property  which  was  made  valueless  thereby,  for  such  was  not 
the  case.  To  the  contrary,  my  ancestors  emancipated  their 
slaves  and  settled  them  on  Government  land.  Neither  can  it 
be  said  that  the  woman  who  afterward  became  my  wife  owned 
negroes. 

I  was  no  abolitionist,  yet  I  believed  that  slavery  should  be 
confined  to  certain  territory,  and  I  further  believe  that  had 
the  majority  of  the  people  of  the  United  States  come  to  vote 
against  slavery  in  a  fair  election,  means  for  the  gradual  eman- 
cipation of  the  negro  should  take  place.  Yet  in  those  days  I 
was  not  a  politician  or  a  statesman  and  gave  the  matter  but 
little  concern,  excepting  when  I  saw  cruel  punishment  meted 
out  to  a  slave  who  would  dare  to  be  free,  by  a  cruel,  barbarous, 
cold-blooded,  heartless  overseer  after  the  slave  had  been  ironed 
down,  as  was  often  the  case  on  the  large  sugar  and  cotton  plan- 
tations. 


IN  ANTE-BELLUM  DAYS. 


In  the  winter  of  '59  my  business  was  to  visit  the  sugar  plan- 
tations on  the  lower  Brazos  River  in  Texas,  many  of  which  no 
one  was  allowed  to  go  into  or  come  out  from  excepting  011  a 
pass  from  the  owner  or  from  the  overseer  from  within,  and  re- 
port on  things  in  general  and  check  up  accounts. 

The was  one  of  these,  and,  armed  with  a  pass  from  the 

proprietor,  I  presented  it  to  the  overseer,  who  looked  at  it 
upside  dozvn  and  then  at  me,  and  said  in  substance :  "If  this 

is  all  right,  you're  all  right;  but if  it  ain't 

right,  I  will  make  you  wish  that  you  were  in  hell  or  some  other 
place  that  burns  not  as  hot  as  I  will  make  this  for  you  here." 

This,  coming  from  a  cruel,  monstrous  looking,  beast-like 
being  with  snake-like  eyes  darting  their  flashings  at  me,  made 
me  feel  sort  of  tremulous.  My  horse  was  well  nigh  broken 
down  from  a  long  day's  journey  which  I  had  made  in  order 
to  get  to  this  place,  for  the  proprietor  told  me  that  I  would  be 
treated  very  nicely,  and  he  was  wanting  more  favors  of  the 
bank  which  I  represented  as  credit  man. 

The  overseer  carried  a  big  six-shooter  on  one  hip  and  a 
bowie  knife  oin  the  other  and  a  great  big  blacksnake  whip  in 
one  hand  and,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  a  pair  of  iron  knuckles 
under  the  glove  on  his  left  hand.  He  motioned  for  me  to  fol- 
low him  and  he  went  down  the  road  a  way  to  a  cabin,  where 
a  white  woman  was  standing  on  a  porch.  He  gave  her  my 
pass  to  read  and  she  declared  it  all  right,  and,  turning  around, 
he  said,  "Well,  come  on  with  me."  The  woman  hollered  to 
know  if  we  were  not  coming  to  supper.  He  yelled  back, 
"Send  it  down  to  us."  So  we  rode  on  to  the  sugar  mill. 

It  was  in  the  midst  of  the  grinding  season.  I  was  told  to 

155 


156  IN   ANTE-BELLUM   DAYS. 

go  and  feed  my  horse  and  throw  my  saddle  and  stuff  up  in  the 
corn  bin,  but  I  could  not  trust  my  saddle-bags  there,  for  in 
them  were  many  thousands  of  dollars'  worth  of  notes  that  I 
had  taken  and  other  statements  of  account  that  had  to  be  looked 
over  and  approved  by  the  overseer  or  owner  of  the  plantation 
I  fed  my  horse,  but  kept  my  saddle-bags  on  my  shoulders  and 
came  back  to  the  mill,  going  to  the  boiling  room  first,  where 
I  had  seen  the  overseer  go. 

I  was  standing  looking  on  when  he  came  up  and  said: 
"If  you  want  to  find  out  anything  you  had  better  follow  me." 
He  undertook  to  take  my  saddle-bags  and  throw  them  over  a 
beam,  but  I  told  him  no,  that  I  could  not  part  with  them ;  then 
I  got  scared  for  a  fact.  He  took  me  down  to  the  furnaces 
where  six-foot  wood  was  being  thrown  in  under  the  boiler 
which  furnished  steam  to  run  the  great  grinders.  The  negro 
who  was  doing  this  was  about  twenty-five  years  old,  six  feet 
one  inch  tall,  weighing  about  one  hundred  and  ninety  or  two 
hundred  pounds.  A  more  perfect  nigger  man  I  had  never 
seen.  He  had  no  clothes  on  whatever.  A  three-fourths  by 
three-inch  band  was  riveted  about  his  hips  and  another  around 
his  neck,  then  a  bar  of  iron  one-half  of  an  inch  thick  and  two 
wide  was  riveted  to  the  one  on  the  hip  and  to  the  one  on  the 
neck,  leaving  a  projection  two  feet  high,  bending  over  on 
which  was  hung  a  large-sized  Kentucky  cowbell.  Around 
his  ankles  a  chain  was  riveted,  and  that  back  to  a  two  hundred 
and  fifty  or  three  hundred  pound  piece  of  iron. 

In  this  condition  this  nigger  was  firing  the  furnace.  How 
long  he  had  been  there  I  never  found  out.  He  was  still  fir- 
ing there  the  next  morning  when  I  came  down.  The  overseer 
stepped  up  to  within  six  or  eight  feet  of  him,  raised  his  black- 
snake  whip,  twirling  it  around  in  the  air  full  arm's  length  with 
an  oath  which  only  demons  could  use,  and  with  a  swash  of  the 

whip  he  screamed  out,  "You'll  run  away  again,  will  you 

!"  Six  or  eight  powerful  lashes  were  laid  on  the 


IN   ANTE-BELLUM   DAYS.  157 

negro  in  this  condition,  who  was  praying,  "Oh,  Massa !  Oh, 
Massa!"  but  that  did  no  good.  Turning  around  to  me  this 
demon  said,  "That's  the  way  we  are  going  to  treat  every  ab- 
olitionist who  comes  down  in  this  country." 

I  followed  the  overseer  up  into  the  boiling  room,  carrying 
my  saddle-bags  on  my  shoulders  all  the  time.  My  only 
weapons  of  defense  was  a  pair  of  small  Derringer  pistols, 
which  I  carried  in  my  breeches  pocket.  He  walked  around, 
slashing  a  nigger  with  his  blacksnake  whip  here  and  there, 
though  all  were  hard  at  work,  and  this  to  both  men  and  women 
alike.  I  followed  the  brute  around  until  finally  we  landed  up 
in  a  room  in  which  there  were  several  cots.  There  was  a  par- 
tition in  the  room,  showing  that  it  might  be  used  by  men  and 
women.  I  was  told  to  take  my  pick  among  the  cots  and  he 
would  send  me  something  to  eat  directly,  which  came  in  the 
shape  of  a  big  chunk  of  corn  dodger  pome  and  boiled  bacon  on 
an  old  tin  plate,  and  with  nothing  else,  and  I  did  eat.  I  finally 
found  some  drinking  water  and  was  offered  some  stuff  they 
called  "metheglam,"  the  smell  of  which  was  enough. 

I  went  to  bed  early,  for  I  was  very  tired,  and  fell  fast  asleep, 
forgetting  all  of  my  troubles  and  fears.  Shortly  after  I  had 
gone  to  bed  a  party  of  four  or  five  young  men  and  as  many 
young  women  came  in.  They  were  having  a  jolly  big  time, 
of  which  I  knew  nothing,  for  I  was  sound  asleep.  I  wore 
boots,  which  were  standing  at  the  head  of  my  bed,  which  they 
filled  with  boiling  hot  syrup  and  then  jumped  on  my  bed  and 
screamed,  "Fire!  Fire!"  I  grabbed  my  saddle-bags,  my 
pants  and  coat  and  started  off  without  my  boots  to  escape,  as 
I  thought,  a  mill  on  fire,  when  the  men  jumped  and  yelled, 
"Your  boots!"  I  shouted  back,  "I  don't  want  them;  where 
will  we  go  to  get  out  of  the  fire  ?" 

They  all,  men  and  women,  commenced  to  laugh.  There 
I  was  standing  before  them,  under  a  dim  light,  with  my  clothes 
and  saddle-bags  in  my  arms  in  my  shirt  tail,  for  up  to  that  time 


158  IN    ANTE-BELLUM   DAYS. 

of  life  I  never  had  worn  a  pair  of  drawers.  They  laughed  fit 
to  kill  themselves,  and  one  broke  out  and  said  with  a  profound 
oath,  "If  he  had  only  stuck  his  feet  into  his  boots  we  would 
have  had  fun."  Whereupon  I  went  back  to  my  cot  and  there 
were  my  boots  filled  full  of  hot  syrup,  which  would  have  ruined 
me  for  life  had  I  have  stuck  my  foot  into  it.  Of  course  my 
boots  were  ruined. 

I  sent  for  the  overseer  as  early  as  possible  in  the  morning, 
for  I  knew  better  than  to  leave  the  plantation  without  his  send- 
ing a  man  to  the  outer  gate  with  me.  He  came  out  rubbing 
his  eyes  and  swearing  that  he  did  not  want  to  be  bothered  by 
people  like  me  who  came  there  seeing  the  niggers.  I  told  him 
that  "I  represented  the  banking  and  commission  house  of  Mr. 
So-and-So  and  Mr.  So-and-So.  The  proprietor  gave  me  the 
note  he  did  to  see  you  and  said  to  have  you  check  up  this  bill, 
but  you  see  I  have  got  no  boots  and  I  have  got  to  get  away  to 
get  something  to  eat,  and  I  may  be  back.  With  an  oath  he 
told  me  to  go,  and  that  I  had  better  not  come  back,  and  I  did 
not.  I  rode  eighteen  miles  to>  Columbia  through  the  worst  road 
a  man  ever  rode  before  I  was  able  to  get  a  pair  of  shoes. 

Now  you  ask  me  of  the  change  I  have  seen.  It  was  less 
than  six  years  after  this  identical  date  that  this  same  negro 
was  presiding  over  the  lower  House  of  the  Texas  Legislature 
as  its  Speaker  in  the  Twelfth  Texas  Legislature.  And  it  was 
he  who  passed  upon  more  measures  looking  to  the  internal  im- 
provement than  all  the  Speakers  who  had  filled  the  chairs  in 
the  eleven  previous  Legislatures  and  all  the  Congresses  of  the 
Republic  of  Texas.  For  many  years  afterward  he  was  Pro- 
bate Judge  of  that  very  identical  county,  and  is  now,  or  was 
a  short  time  back.  *  *  * 

The  owner  of  an  adjoining  plantation  made  a  raid  on  this 
plantation  and  on  this  overseer's  wife.  In  defending  her  this 
overseer  was  shot  in  a  dozen  or  more  places  and  then  cut  to 
pieces  with  a  bowie  knife,  and  Jackson,  the  murderer,  was 


IN    ANTE-BELLUM    DAYS.  159 

turned  loose  by  a  jury  of  his  peers  two  years  afterward,  and 
two  years  after  that  was  himself  shot  to  pieces  by  a  cowboy 
whom  he  had  insulted.  The  cowboy  was  never  molested. 

My  business  brought  me  in  contact  with  all  the  largest  cot- 
ton and  cane  plantations  on  the  Brazos,  Colorado,  Guadalupe 
and  Trinity  Rivers  of  Texas,  and  I  was  drilled  into  my  busi- 
ness and  thoroughly  instructed  as  to  how  to  size  up  a  planta- 
tion and  its  owners  and  overseers.'  Upon  my  report  largely 
depended  the  credit  by  the  Houston,  Galveston  and  New  Or- 
leans factors  and  bankers. 

In  those  days  business  was  conducted  on  quite  a  different 
plan  from  what  it  is  now  in  any  part  of  the  world.  The  man 
who  owned  a  tract  of  land,  clear  and  unincumbered,  and  four 
or  five  niggers,  could  usually  procure  credit  to  the  full  face 
value  of  the  niggers  and  the  land,  either  in  ready  cash  or  in 
goods  furnished  for  plantation  supplies.  The  rates  were  ten 
per  cent  per  annum  interest,  one  year's  time,  renewable  every 
year,  with  two  and  one-half  per  cent  for  advancing,  making 
the  interest  equal  to  twelve  and  one-half  per  cent. 

.  If  the  transaction  was  for  ready  money,  it  was  to  buy  more 
niggers.  On  a  good  plantation,  under  good  management,  and 
cotton  at  five  and  six  cents  a  pound,  a  negro  was  calculated  to 
pay  for  himself  and  mule  and  provisions  for  both  in  three 
years'  time  on  a  cotton  plantation  and  in  two  years'  time  on  a 
sugar  plantation. 

When  an  up-country  planter  opened  an  account  with  a  com- 
mission merchant  or  banker  in  New  Orleans  or  any  other  city 
he  paid  full  retail  price  for  all  goods  and  two  and  one-half  per 
cent  for  advancing.  The  contract  virtually  gave  over  to  the 
factor  all  of  the  planter's  earthly  possessions,  and  it  was  often 
the  case  that  the  factor  furnished  the  overseer  for  the  place, 
much  as  the  courts  of  the  country  now  appoint  "receivers"  for 
lame  ducks.  A  note  given  "for  plantation  supplies"  covered 
everything,  no  exceptions, 


I6O  IN    ANTE-BELLUM    DAYS. 

The  average  cotton  planter  was  a  humane  master,  and  I 
have  visited  hundreds  of  plantations  where  the  negroes  on 
them  were  treated  with  the  greatest  consideration  and  Chris- 
tian kindness,  and  they  were  treated  just  about  as  the  home 
folks  were. 

It  was  on  the  big  sugar  plantations  and  large  Mississippi 
cotton  plantations  that  cruelty  was  shown  to  the  slaves  by  the 
barbarous,  cruel  overseer,  the  like  of  which  I  have  described. 
The  owners  were  in  Europe  or  in  some  Northern  summer  re- 
sort or  winter  resort  in  the  South,  scarcely  ever  visiting  the 
plantation.  The  overseer  was  the  go-between  for  the  sup- 
posed owner  and  the  real  owner,  the  banker  or  the  commission 
merchant.  The  average  Southern  planter  of  this  class  was 
a  bankrupt  from  the  start.  Money  was  furnished  him  by  his 
factor,  very  much  as  rich  people  or  corporations  furnish  money 
to  pensioners,  retired  clerks,  etc. 

The  negro  by  nature  is  indolent.  He  is  impudent,  sassy, 
and  if  given  an  inch  will  take  an  ell  at  any  time.  He  is  a  great 
flatterer.  In  order  to  keep  him  straight  the  lash  was  neces- 
sary and  has  always  been  found  necessary,  more  or  less,  in  all 
well-regulated  families. 

I  have  been  in  all  of  the  great  slave  pens  or  marts  in  the 
big  cities  like  Richmond,  Mobile,  New  Orleans  and  Galves- 
ton,  and  I  never  saw  anything  so  wonderfully  out  of  the  way  or 
more  than  might  be  expected  by  any  sane  person  who  looked 
at  the  thing  just  as  it  was  and  had  to  be.  Niggers  were  raised 
in  Kentucky  and  Tennessee  and  Virginia,  just  as  horses  and 
mules  were,  for  sale  to  the  cotton  and  sugar  planters  of  the 
South,  and  just  as  they  raised  hemp  with  which  to  bale  the  cot- 
ton, and  just  as  cattle  and  horses  and  hogs  are  raised  today  for 
sale  or  consignment  to  the  big  markets. 

I  was  never  commissioned  to  buy  any  negroes  or  to  sell 
any,  but  I  will  explain  how  the  matter  was  conducted.  A  com- 
mission house  received  an  order  to  buy  four  or  fifty,  as  the 


IN    ANTE-BELLUM   DAYS.  l6l 

case  might  be,  field  hands,  men  under  twenty,  not  over  thirty. 
He  went  to  the  mart  and  that  number  of  hands  were  picked 
out,  or  a  less  number  or  a  larger  number,  or  half  a  dozen  girls 
or  half  a  dozen  women  for  maid-servants,  hotel  servants  or 
house  servants.  They  were  brought  forward  for  exhibition. 
The  purchaser  had  but  a  few  questions  to  ask.  No  dickering 
as  to  price  was  had.  On  the  bulletin)  board  were  written  words 
to  this  effect,  "On  Next  Wednesday  (three  or  four  days  off 
from  the  time  they  were  selected)  we  will  sell  on  the  block 
twenty  abled-bodied  young  men,  field  hands.  None  under 
eighteen,  none  over  thirty." 

On  that  day  the  agent  came  and  the  bidding  commenced. 
If  there  were  one,  two  or  three  parties  around  there  who  wanted 
that  particular  sort  of  a  drove,  possibly  the  bidding  was  live- 
ly and  the  man  who*  got  that  bunch  of  niggers  paid  a  thousand 
or  twelve  hundred  dollars  apiece  for  them.  The  separation 
of  families  was  not  as  frequent  as  many  would  think,  for  it 
was  not  either  good  sense,  public  policy  or  financial  interest  to 
do  it.  Then  it  made  no  great  difference  to  the  negro.  Very 
few  of  them  had  anything  like  affections  or  attachments  for 
each  other.  The  mother  might  cry  and  go  on  for  a  little  while, 
but  with  the  coming  of  the  morrow  it  was  entirely  gone  out  of 
her  mind,  and  so  also  with  the  father.  Like  cats,  they  have 
little  or  no  thoughts  of  the  past  and  no  gratitude  in  their 
make-up. 

"Uncle  Tom's  Cabin"  pictured  forth  some  things  in  good 
shape,  and  as  a  play  to  catch  the  eye  and  senses  of  the  masses 
and  also  as  an  educator  it  was  a  great  success.  The  people  of 
the  North  were  educated  to  believe  the  hard  stories  which  were 
told  of  how  the  poor  slave  was  treated  down  South,  just  as  the 
warm-hearted,  noble-souled  'women  of  the  South  were  edu- 
cated to  believe  in  the  cruelty  of  the  Yankees,  as  I  have  set 
forth  and  explained  elsewhere,  and  in  turn,  just  as  the  people 


1 62  IN    ANTE-BELLUM    DAYS. 

of  the  North  were  educated  to  believe  in  the  Andersonville 
prison  horrors. 

I  attended  a  reunion  of  the  Grand  Army  of  the  Republic 
where  a  man  was  selling  pictures  representing  the  prison  hor- 
rors of  Andersonville,  and  they  were  all  on  a  par  with  the  one 
I  will  undertake  to  describe.  This  picture  represented  four 
large  mules  drawing  a  modern  four-wheeled  truck  wagon  with 
standards  upon  each  end,  six  feet  high,  chained  together  on  top. 
This  was  rilled  crosswise  with  human  bodies.  The  body  of 
the  wagon  was  twelve  feet  long,  six  feet  high  and  five  feet 
wide.  These  human  bodies  were  laid  crosswise  and  stacked 
up,  rounding  on  top,  just  as  one  may  see  a  load  of  frozen  hogs 
stacked. 

These  bodies  were  stacked  up  on  top  of  one  another  and 
were  being  driven  to  where  a  pile  of  human  bodies  one  hun- 
dred feet  long  by  fifty  feet  high  were  thrown  together.  No 
intelligent  man  who  looked  at  those  pictures  but  knew  that  he 
was  looking  at  a  lie,  an  impossibility ;  that  there  were  no  such 
mules  in  harness  down  there ;  that  there  were  no  such  wagons 
made  in  those  days ;  that  no  bodies  of  dead  human  beings  could 
be  piled  up  in  any  such  a  way  as  that.  If  all  the  prisoners  at 
Andersonville  had  been  dead  and  thrown  in  one  big  pile  it 
could  not  have  made  such  a  pile  as  the  picture  represented. 
Notwithstanding  all  this,  that  fox-faced,  cunning  old  limping 
hypocrite  was  doing  a  big  business,  selling  those  lithograph 
pictures  to  the  soldiers'  wives  and  daughters.  I  never  was  a 
gambling  man,  but  had  I  have  been  I  would  have  bet  one  thou- 
sand dollars  to  one  that  the  man  who  sold  the  pictures  never 
was  in  any  sort  of  an  army  except  an  army  of  deceiving  thieves 
who  are  as  bad  as  cutthroats.  Oh,  how  the  women  would  weep 
over  those  pictures ! 

The  worst  feature  of  slavery  that  I  saw  was  what  was 
termed  "missignation,"  which  word  implies  little  or  much  to 
different  people,  but  to  me  it  implies  much.  It  was  a  growing 


IN    ANTE-BELLUM    DAYS.  163 

evil.  It  is  not  the  case  in  the  South  now.  The  white  and 
black  races  are  becoming  more  and  more  separated.  One  can- 
not see  in  the  city  of  New  Orleans  today  one  octoroon,  where 
fifty  years  ago>  he  might  have  seen  one  hundred.  There  are 
many  less  kinky  headed  white  children  born  in  the  South  now 
than  there  were  fifty  years  ago,  and  I  may  safely  say  fifty  to 
one  less. 

I  have  referred  elsewhere  to  the  migration  of  the  negro 
from  the  South,  and  I  have  thought  that  in  consequence  thereof 
the  race  will  be  swallowed  up,  dried  up,  evaporated.  While  it 
had  been  on  the  increase  since  the  war,  it  was  under  conditions 
that  do  not  exist  in  their  migratory  state. 

I  was  traveling  with  a  gentleman  through  Arizona  and  was 
asking  him  of  the  stock  conditions.  He  told  me  that  it  had 
been  very  profitable,  but  that  in  the  past  few  years  the  range 
had  been  over- fed  and  the  grass  was  dying  out,  and  he  said  (I 
am  not  undertaking  to  repeat  his  exact  words)  :  "Cows  down 
here  evaporate  and  disappear,  just  like  the  niggers  down  South 
in  Georgia  where  I  came  from  do,  and  no  one  can  tell  what 
becomes  of  them."  I  believe  that  races  have  thus  disappeared 
from  being  swallowed  up.  Did  you  ever  see  a  dead  cat,  a  dead 
wild  goose  or  duck  or  humming  bird  ?  I  do  not  mean  one  that 
has  been  killed  or  trapped. 

The  negro  will  never  rule  the  United  States  again  as  in  the 
past,  and  his  day  of  rule  in  the  South  has  passed  away  never 
to  return  again,  and  the  people  of  the  North  say,  "It  is  well.*' 


AN  EX-CONFEDERATE  MONUMENT. 


I  have  been  asked  to  give  a  history  of  the  building  of  the 
Confederate  nTonument  in  Chicago,  how  it  was  brought  about, 
its  early  inception,  origination  and  completion,  by  people  who 
knew  that  I  had  done  some  early  guiding  and  scouting  in  that 
direction. 

It  is  often  the  case  that  when  a  man  undertakes  to  accom- 
plish a  great  undertaking  he  must  place  dummies  and  work 
from  afar  in  the  rear  and  through  stool-pigeons  and  wooden 
soldiers  and  decoys,  and  often  not  let  his  right  hand  know  what 
his  left  hand  is  doing. 

The  story  has  so  many  points  of  beginning  and  only  one 
ending  that  I  scarcely  know  where  to  commence,  but  its  first 
inception  was  from  the  following  little  incident : 

When  Grant  crossed  down  below  Vicksburg  and  after  the 
battle  of  Big  Black,  where  the  Confederacy  through  Pember- 
ton's  drunken  incompetency  lost  so  many  soldiers  unneces- 
sarily (referred  to  in  previous  chapters)  he  came  down  to  Jack- 
son, Mississippi,  and  sent  a  "feeler"  on  down  toward  Mobile  on 
the  railroad  leading  in  that  direction.  I  was  on  my  way  from 
Richmond  to  the  Trans-Mississippi  Department  with  the  most 
important  dispatch  which  up  to  that  time  it  had  been  my  mis- 
sion to  bear. 

I  had  on  a  light  pair  of  pants,  light  shoes,  one  shirt,  a  Fed- 
eral blue  blouse  and  what  once  was  a  Panama  hat.  I  had  my 
Derringer  pistols  in  my  breeches  pocket.  The  dispatch  was 
pinned  on  my  blouse  inside  of  the  lapel.  I  had  two  packages 
of  five  plugs  each  of  the  finest  Gravely  tobacco  that^ever  was 
sold  in  Richmond,  a  package  in  each  inside  pocket.  There  was 
method  in  my  madness  when  I  had  this  done.  The  heavy  dis- 

164 


AN  EX-CONFEDERATE  MONUMENT.  165 

patch  paper  which  covered  them,  the  heavy  red  seals  placed  at 
each  end  would  indicate  that  they  were  O'f  extra  value;  and 
so  was  Gravely  in  those  days.  Such  tobacco  is  worth  $3.00 
per  pound  now. 

These  were  my  tubs  that  I  carried  along  to  throw  to  the 
whales.  I  had  best  tell  this  whale  story  that  I  may  be  the  bet- 
ter understood.  In  the  days  gone  beyond  recall  when  whal- 
ing was  a  business  followed  by  a  large  number  of  people,  the 
harpooner  was  a  man  unto  himself.  He  stood  in  the  front  of 
the  boat  and  cast  his  fluke  irons  in  the  best  part  of  the  whale  he 
could  strike.  To  this  harpoon  would  be  attached  three  or  five 
hundred  feet  of  rope  coiled  up  in  the  boat,  which  would  pay 
out  very  fast  when  the  whale  got  to  feeling  the  effects  of  the 
flukes. 

He  made  thinks  lively  around  there  and  when  three  or 
five  hundred  feet  of  rope  was  played  out  the  boat  with  the  four 
or  five  sailors  in  it  bobbed  around  on  the  water  lively.  When 
Mr.  Whale  came  to  the  surface  he  broke  for  the  boat  and  there 
would  be  no  chance  of  getting  away  from  him.  So  the  boat- 
men were  always  provided  with  a  few  tubs  which  they  threw  at 
the  whale,  and  while  the  whale  was  demolishing  the  tub  they 
made  good  their  escape.  So  my  dispatch-like  packag'es  of  to- 
bacco were  my  tubs. 

The  whale  struck  me  about  four  o'clock  one  evening.  I 
had  no  more  idea  of  seeing  Yankees  down  in  that  section  thirty 
miles  south  of  Jackson  on  the  Mobile  road  than  I  had  of  seeing 
ghosts.  I  was  right  on  them  before  I  knew  it.  I  was  off 
guard,  not  expecting  danger.  That  is  when  we  most  often 
get  it  to  our  heart's  content,  for,  as  Garfield  said  when  he  was 
nominated,  "It  is  the  unexpected  which  occurs." 

I  had  crossed  a  little  stream  and  gone  perhaps  a  mile  when, 
looking  before  me  in  the  big  road,  I  saw  quite  a  dust.  It  was 
an  open  pine  woods  country.  The  next  I  saw  was  twenty-five 
or  thirty  well-mounted,  very  dusty  Yankees.  I  knew  them 


l66  AN  EX-CONFEDERATE  MONUMENT. 

quicker  than  they  knew  who  I  was.  I  rode  out  to  the  side  of 
the  road  to  let  them  pass,  as  though  it  were  a  matter  of  every- 
day occurrence,  but  the  commander  of  the  advance  guard  did 
not  see  it  that  way,  and  yelled  out,  "Hey,  Johnnie!"  then  I 
knew  that  it  was  a  Westerner,  for  that  was  what  all  Western 
troopers  called  us  rebels.  "Heave  to  here  and  tell  us  how  far  it 
is  to  the  next  water."  I  turned  my  mule  and  said,  "Oh,  well, 
I'll  show  you.  It  is  only  down  here  a  mile."  And  he  rode 
toward  me  and  I  rode  toward  him,  coming  together  slantwise- 
like,  and  true  to  his  Yankee  instinct,  and  as  I  knew  would  be 
the  case,  he  reached  down  and  took  out  of  my  pocket  next  to 
him  what  he  supposed  to  be  what  I  wanted  him  to  think  it  was, 
and  then  seeing  the  package  in  the  other  pocket,  he  took  that 
out,  while  I  picked  off  and  chewed  up  and  swallowed  Secretary- 
of  War  Sedden's  autographed  special  order  by  command  of 
the  President. 

I  saw  that  my  captor  felt  happy  when  he  told  me,  "You 
will  consider  yourself  a  prisoner  of  war  and  as  such,  sir,  deport 
yourself." 

"All  right,"  says  I. 

We  soon  reached  the  creek,  and  then  others  reached  it,  and 
soon  others  reached  it,  and  then  the  infantry  came  up,  and 
there  might  have  been  twenty-five  thousand  live  Yankees  there 
that  night. 

I  saw  a  squad  of  cavalry  coming  and  I  looked  at  the  chief 
rider,  whom  I  recognized  from  pictures  I  had  seen  of  him.  I 
knew  that  it  was  General  John  A.  Logan  and  that  he  was  the 
"Sancho  Pansy"  of  the  lay-out.  Colonel  Bolton  of  the  Chi- 
cago flying  artillery  was  the  man  who  captured  me.  He 
turned  me  and  my  dispatches,  as  he  supposed,  over  to  Logan, 
who  was  tired  and  gave  me  no  particular  attention  save  to  ask 
where  I  was  from,  which  I  answered  promptly  and  told  the 
truth.  They  paid  no  attention  to  me,  nor  did  I  much  to  them. 


AN  EX-CONFEDERATE  MONUMENT. 

They  divided  their  crackers  and  coffee  and  bacon  with  me,  and 
soon  all  were  laying  down  flat  on  the  ground  and  sound  asleep. 

Logan  called  Bolton  to  him  and  said  loud  enough  for  me 
to  hear,  "That  Johnnie  has  played  a  hell  of  a  trick  on  you. 
See  here  what  he  had  in  those  papers."  And  out  he  drew  my 
ten  plugs  of  highly  prized  and  very  valuable  tobacco,  a  division 
of  which  then  commenced,  when  I  walked  up  and  asked  if  I 
might  not  have  a  little  piece  of  it  myself,  that  I  was  carrying  it 
home  to  my  old  father  in  Texas  from  an  old  uncle  who  manu- 
factured it.  The  lie  went,  and  so  did  I  soon  after. 

Soon  everything  was  still  in  camp  and  I  did  not  ask, 
"Where's  your  mule?"  But  I  put  to  practice  tactics  which  I 
had  learned  in  the  Indian  country,  and  soon  on  all  fours  I  was 
out  of  the  dead  line  and  by  daybreak  I  was  twenty-five  miles 
away  and  at  Dr.  Lyons'  White  Surphur  Springs,  Mississippi. 
Sedden's  dispatch  was  delivered  in  my  hand  writing  and  not 
in  his.  The  delay  that  was  caused  by  my  running  up  against 
the  Federal  army  was  more  than  made  up  by  running  "fer- 
ninst"  them. 

Sixteen  years  after  this  date  I  went  to  the  Chicago  post- 
office  second-class  division  to  pay  postage  on  a  paper  that  I 
was  then  publishing  in  Chicago'.  Colonel  Bolton,  for  that  was 
he,  looked  at  me  as  much  as  to  say  he  wanted  a  drink  from  an 
old  acquaintance,  and  after  eyeing  me  over  and  having  his  clerk 
give  me  a  receipt,  he  said:  "Haven't  I  met  you  somewhere?" 

"Yes,  I  have  been  there,"  was  my  reply ;  "and  I  think  from 
the  look  of  your  jib  you  have  either  crossed  my  trail  or  I  have 

yours,  and  I  suggest  that  we  adjourn  over  to ,"  well,  it 

was  where  liquid  refreshments  were  dealt  out. 

He  asked  me  what  army  I  belonged  to  and  then  I  caught 
on.  I  recognized  both  the  man  and  his  voice,  and  said  I,  "Are 
you  ready  to  pay  me  for  that  tobacco,  to  say  nothing  about  the 
mule?" 

He  jumped  up  and  grabbed  my  hand  and  I  his.     We  had 


l68  AN  EX-CONFEDERATE  MONUMENT. 

a  drink  or  two  and  then  he  said,  "Follow  me.  Now  we  will 
have  some  fun." 

He  took  me  to  the  Grand  Pacific  Hotel,  where  General  Lo- 
gan  was  in  conference  with  "Long  Jones,"  his  party's  State 
Committeeman ;  for  Logan  was  hard  run  for  one  or  two*  more 
votes  to  return  him  to  the  United  States  Senate,  and  Jones  "he 
paid  freight  on  all  goods  wanted."  And  Logan  got  there 
again. 

Bolton  bolted  into  the  room  with  me  without  ceremony,  and 
carrying  me  up  in  front  of  Logan  said :  "General,  here's  that 
Johnnie  rebel  prisoner  that  you  put  me  under  arrest  for  for 
two  weeks.  Now  take  him." 

The  first  words  that  Logan  said  to  me  were:  "That  was 
almighty  good  tobacco  that  your  uncle  was  sending  to  your 
dad." 

I  replied,  "It  went,  didn't  it,  General  ?" 

Turning  around  to  Bolton  he  said :  "It  seems  as  though  it 
did  with  Bolton." 

He  wanted  to  know  of  me  what  dispatch  it  was  that  I  car- 
ried. We  laughed  over  the  matter  a  little.  He  wanted  to 
know  if  I  got  through  with  it,  and  I  said  I  did. 

From  that  on  Logan  and  I  were  great  personal  friends, 
and  there  was  nothing  honorable  in  the  power  of  men  that  I 
would  not  have  done  for  him,  and  I  esteem  Mrs.  Logan  as  one 
of  the  grandest  of  American  woman  living  today. 

Grant  had  served  his  country  eight  years  and  was  return- 
ing around  the  world  and  would  soon  reach  San  Francisco.  I 
had  already  made  a  few  "extemporaneous  remarks"  before 
large  audiences  in  favor  of  a  third  term-  deal.  It  was  Logan 
who  suggested  to  me  to  call  the  Confederates  together  in  the 
city  of  Chicago  to  welcome  Grant,  and  making  that  a  nucleus 
organize,  and  he  would  see  that  the  ground  in  which  the  Con- 
federates were  buried  in  Chicago  would  be  turned  over  to  us  to 
decorate. 


AN  EX-CONFEDERATE  MONUMENT.  169 

I  put  advertisements  in  the  Chicago  papers,  calling  for  a 
meeting  of  the  ex-Confederates  in  Chicago,  to  meet  in  the  Tre- 
mont  Hotel  to  form  ourselves  into  a  company  to  welcome  U. 
S.  Grant.  There  was  no  name  signed  to  the  advertisement, 
but  the  boys  came. 

I  was  not  acquainted  with  more  than  two  or  three.  I  had 
one  of  my  acquaintances  nominate  a  chairman  for  the  meeting 
and  another  nominate  a  secretary.  I  was  not  known  in  the  deal, 
nor  did  I  open  my  mouth  in  the  meeting.  Better  men  could 
not  have  been  selected  than  were.  One,  the  secretary,  turned 
turtle  after  he  had  been  presented  with  a  fine  silver  service  for 
his  efficiency  as  secretary,  and  solely  because  the  boys  would 
not  elect  him  president. 

At  the  proper  time  I  introduced  a  resolution  for  the  meet- 
ing to  have  a  committee  of  three  appointed  to  correspond  with 
the  Secretary  of  War  with  a  view  of  obtaining  the  proper  au- 
thority for  the  better  care  of  the  graves  of  the  seventy-eight 
hundred  Confederate  soldiers  who  died  at  Camp  Douglas  in 
Chicago.  I  could  get  no  second  to  my  resolution.  All  of  the 
boys  were  clerks  and  similarly  conditioned,  who  were  great 
Confederates  to  hear  them  talk  when  there  was  no 'one  else 
around,  but  who  feared  public  opinion  and  sentiment  and  the 
blue  pencil  of  their  bosses  as  a  slave  did  the  lash. 

After  assuring  the  crowd  that  I  had  the  assurance  of  Sen- 
ator Logan  and  the  then  Secretary  of  War,  Robert  Lincoln, 
there  were  half  a  dozen  seconds  and  the  committee  was  in- 
creased from  my  suggestion  to  nine,  and  I  have  often  been 
surprised  that  it  had  not  been  increased  to  the  full  number  of 
members  who  were  there  that  night.  These  little  clerkies  gave 
me  a  great  deal  of  trouble  and  at  one  time  I  came  very  near 
abandoning  the  undertaking. 

Finally  a  scheme  presented  itself  through  General  George 
R.  Davis,  an  ex-Congressman  and  manager  of  the  World's 
Fair  undertaking  in  Chicago,  who  sent  for  me.  He  and  I 


AN  EX-CONFEDERATE  MONUMENT. 

were  old  neighbors  and  friends.  The  conference  ended  in  my 
naming  to  him  six  of  the  boys  whose  bosses  would  let  them 
go,  he  to  furnish  the  funds  and  all  expenses,  to'  Atlanta, 
Georgia,  and  interview  Senator  Gordon.  I  played  'way  back 
in  the  background.  This  little  trip  secured  the  World's  Fair 
for  Chicago.  But  for  it  St.  Louis  would  have  carried  the  day. 

When  the  boys  returned  I  met  them  in  the  Grand  Pacific 
Hotel.  They  treated  me  as  though  I  wasn't  in  the  deal  and 
knew  nothing  of  it.  They  were  swollen  up  as  big  as  such 
characters  could  possibly  swell.  In  a  few  days,  however,  they 
were  down  to  their  normal  condition  as  clerks. 

After  this  the  association  met  without  my  knowledge  and 
made  a  deal  with  a  Kentucky  Colonel,  who  had  never  heard 
the  sound  of  a  gun  or  smelled  powder,  and  who,  for  all  I  know, 
may  have  made  a  lot  of  money  out  of  it.  But  the  monument 
was  erected  all  the  same,  and  it  stands  there  today — a  forty 
thousand  dollar  monument,  the  finest  up  to  its  day  that  ever 
marked  a  spot  where  a  Confederate  soldier  lay,  ninety-five  per 
cent  of  the  cost  of  which  was  paid  by  the  business  men  of  Chi- 
cago. I  could  name  two  or  three  men  of  the  Camp  in  Chi- 
cago who  are  really  worthy  of  esteem.  The  balance  are  all  on 
a  parity  with  that  class  of  people  who,  if  you  but  stick  a  feather 
in  their  hat  and  give  them  a  few  hot  toddies  and  a  few  words 
of  flattery,  away  they  go  "bigger  men  than  old  Grant." 

It  has  been  my  observation  through  life  that  the  smaller 
the  man,  the  greater  opinion  he  has  of  himself;  and  the  less 
he  does  for  the  world  and  for  others,  the  more  he  becomes 
exalted  in  his  own  opinion.  Of  all  detestable  things  I  ever 
came  across  what  could  equal  a  negro  baby  whitewashed  or 
a  white  man  black-washed,  i.  e.,  an  old  grizzly-bearded,  gray- 
haired  fool  and  poppin-jay  with  his  beard  and  hair  dyed  black? 

The  Mohammedan  religion  teaches  that  there  are  seven 
grades  in  hell  and  each  succeeding  one  is  twice  as  hot  as  the 
first  of  the  one  preceding  it,  to  "let  the  punishment  fit  the 


AN  EX-CONFEDERATE  MONUMENT.  171 

crime,"  and  that  the  seventh  and  hottest  one  is  the  hell  of  the 
hypocrite.  The  man  or  woman  who  thinks  that  anything  is 
to  be  gained  by  lying,  deceit  and  hypocrisy  would  think  vastly 
otherwise  if  he  or  she  would  but  live  a  straightforward,  honest, 
faithful,  virtuous  and  truthful  life. 

It  is  the  pretender,  the  actor,  the  deceiver,  the  liar,  the  fallen 
one  in  all  things,  who  makes  this  world  one  of  cruelty.  It  is 
the  truthful  man  or  woman,  and  it  is  the  truthful  boy  or  girl 
who  makes  these,  who  make  this  world  all  it  is  of  bountifulness 
and  beauty.  Like  begets  like  in  all  things,  was  God's  first 
order,  and  as  we  sow  so  shall  we  reap.  Who  plants  blessings 
will  never  reap  thistles,  and  he  who  honestly  and  faithfully 
and  truly  seeks  to  make  all  mankind  with  whom  he  comes  in 
contact  better  and  more  happy,  and  who  seeks  to'  make  two 
blades  grow  where  one  formerly  grew,  it  is  that  man  or  woman 
who  receives  the  first  lessons  in  heavenly  homeship  here  on 
earth,  to  be  made  more  bright  and  happy  and  perpetual  in 
that  bourne  from  whence  no  traveler  ever  returns. 

It  is  the  lying,  deceitful  hypocrite  and  the  coward  who  has 
made  the  Christian  religion  the  derision  of  so  many  noble, 
honest  people.  The  cowards  of  the  church  that  wear 'the  cloth 
condone  offenses  against  the  tenets  of  the  church  until  they 
have  disgraced  the  calling  so  that  the  average  man  of  affairs, 
of  observation  and  business  experiences,  turns  from  the 
preacher  with,  if  not  downright  contempt  and  loathsomeness, 
then  with  the  same  feeling  that  he  woiild  from  a  bad  customer, 
as  from  some  one  or  any  one  who  comes  around  him  wanting 
something  for  nothing,  ever  begging,  ever  praying  for  more 
and  more,  never  content  and  never  giving  thanks  for  what  is 
given  or  for  what  they  receive. 

It  is  part  of  my  religion  and  belief — I  teach  it  and  practice 
it — that  God,  my  great  Creator,  has  no  use  for  the  beggar,  and 
that  He  pays  no  attention  to  prayers.  He  knows  in  advance 
our  wants  and,  as  I  believe,  it  is  an  insult  to  Him  to  spend 


AN  EX-CONFEDERATE  MONUMENT. 

our  time  in  suggesting  what  He  should  do.  I  mean  by  this 
these  beggarly  prayers.  The  great  Creator  knows  all  things, 
provides  all  things,  and  He  gives  all  things  for  good,  and  He 
expects  from  His  creatures  here  below  the  return  of  thanks, 
expressions  of  gratefulness,  and  to  these  all  things  are  added. 

I  have  never  seen  in  my  world-wide  travels  a  prosperous, 
contented,  happy  community  but  that  the  preponderant 
peculiarity  and  characteristic  was  politeness,  thankfulness, 
kindness  in  all  these  things  which  make  a  sojourner  or  stranger 
within  their  gates  feel  as  though  he  had  been  promoted  many 
degrees  heavenward. 

I  have  never  yet  seen  a  first-class  hypocrite  but  that  he  was 
always  wanting  to  pray  with  the  family  he  visited.  I  have 
saved  more  money  in  my  life  by  playing  shy  of  the  man  who 
wanted  to  make  the  women  and  children  believe,  through  and 
by  his  accursed  hypocritical  actions  and  pretensions,  that  he 
was  just  a  little  better  than  the  best  man  they  had  ever  met  be- 
fore, and  that  he  was  too  utterly,  utterly  good  to  ever  be  bad  in ' 
anything. 

These  are  the  very  chaps  who,  when  they  go  to  a  great  city 
like  Chicago  or  New  York,  want  to  go  "slumming"  and  want 
to  go*  to  the  theater,  and  who  are  many  times  over  delighted 
with  a  leg  show  than  they  are  with  any  first-class  performance ; 
and  they  are  the  men  who,  when  they  go  home,  will  tell,  if 
you  are  acquainted  in  that  country,  all  the  people  around  what 
a  powerful  bad  man,  what  a  wonderfully  wicked  man  you  are, 
and  that  you  are  all  the  while  trying  to  pilot  them  into  the  dens 
of  iniquity. 

I  have  come  across  in  my  day  no  few  of  this  sort  and  have 
found  without  exception  the  man  who  professes  to  be  the  most 
sanctimonious  at  home  is  the  most  perfect  "devilly  bug"  when 
far  enough  away  as  to  warrant  him  in  thinking  that  no  one 
will  ever  find  him  out. 

A.  young  man  once  asked  a  sage  which  way  would  he  go 


AN  EX-CONFEDERATE  MONUMENT.  173 

to  find  room  to  advance.  The  sage  pointed  to  the  upper 
shelves  of  his  book  case  and  said,  "See,  how  empty  they  are!" 
It  is  thus  to-day.  Always  was  and  always  will  be.  The  higher 
we  ascend,  the  fewer  to  interfere  with  our  spreading  out.  The 
world  to-day  is  more  and  more  demanding  noble  men,  true 
men,  natural  men,  men  of  thought.  And  the  world  will  re- 
ward this  sort  as  it  has  been  rewarding  them  in  the  last  hun- 
dreds of  years  and  especially  since  the  foundation  of  this  great 
Government  oi  human  liberty,  where  all  men  are  equal,  except 
that  the  energetic,  industrious,  truthful  man — and  he  has  but 
few  equals — has  reached  out  and  has  great  room  in  which  to 
rove.  ' 

The  teacher,  the  preacher,  the  lecturer  o>f  to-day  who  goes 
out  assailing  wrongs  and  faults  and  the  untruth  is  the  one 
who  will  be  blessed  in  both,  basket  and  store. 

No  man  has  a  right  to  participate  in  any  sort  o>f  charity  or 
the  promotion  of  any  sort  in  religion  or  politics  who  owes  an- 
other man  one  cent.  For  the  man  who  owes  debts  to  give 
money  to  any  sort  of  an  enterprise  is  like  taking  another  man's 
money  without  his  consent.  I  know  of  a  party,  and  there  are 
millions  of  them,  who  tried  to  make  his  neighbors  and  people 
believe  that  he  is  a  very  honest  man  and  a  good  Christian.  He 
entertains  the  preacher  and  always  contributes  largely  in  as 
public  a  way  as  possible  when  the  hat  is  passed  around.  This 
man  has  worse  than  robbed  foreign  creditors  to  the  tune  of 
thousands  of  dollars.  His  ability  to  successfully  play  the 
hypocrite,  to  act  the  part,  never  fails  to  be  sufficient  to  fool  and 
deceive  any  one  having  anything  for  sale,  if  the  party  comes 
from  a  distance  and  relies  upon  the  statement  made  by  the 
neighbors  of  this  man,  who  in  every  instance  has  no  knowledge 
or  idea  of  his  hypocritical  way  of  making  money,  through 
making  them  believe  he  is  a  saint,  and  they  in  turn  giving  it 
that  way  to  the  salesman. 

That  I  have  paid  dear  for  my  experience  in  this  line  no  one 


174  AN  EX-CONFEDERATE  MONUMENT. 

should  doubt,  and  I  only  give  my  experience  as  I  do  in  hope 
that  it  may  be  of  benefit  only  to  those  who  like  myself  have 
hearts  that  prompt  desires  to  the  accomplishment  of  good  to  all. 

Some  years  ago  I  traveled  through  Georgia  and  Florida 
to  administer  on  my  own  estate,  in  order  that  my  grand- 
children, whom  I  love  so  much,  and  who  are  to  receive  it, 
should  not  spend  money  to  find  out  how  that  "Grandpap"  was 
an  old  fool  and  died  a  pauper  as  far  as  his  Southern  invest- 
ments were  concerned. 

I  had  planted  considerable  money  on  the  partnership  plan. 
I  bet  on  the  honesty  of  my  men,  mostly  old  Confederate  sol- 
diers, but  did  not  calculate  upon  the  curses  of  Almighty  God 
which  rested  on  the  country.  From  frosts  and  unprecedented 
freezes  that  came  on  the  property  every  time  the  trees  got  old 
enough  to  bear,  and  drouths  when  the  cane  needed  rain  to 
mature  it,  but  from  no  fault  of  the  men  whom  I  "grub-staked," 
I  lost  my  all.  Just  about  as  I  did  when  I  made  a  consignment 
of  valuable  goods  in  an  old  rotten  hulk  of  a  ship  and  started 
it  through  the  Indian  Ocean,  and  thus  have  a  cause  to  charge 
it  up  to  the  "acts  of  God,"  as  my  invoices  and  bills  of  lading 
would  provide  for  and  against  such  accidents,  and  as  did  my 
late  contractor  when  he  inserted  in  my  contract  the  words, 
"Strikes  not  preventing." 

I  was  very  much  annoyed  one  evening  in  my  Camp  when 
there  were  present  quite  a  number  of  my  old  partners — to 
whom  I  was  giving  quit-claim  deeds — and  I  was  talking  with 
that  free  abandon  which  has  always  characterized  me  in  my 
intercourse  with  my  fellowmen,  and  much  as  I  might  to  an  old 
salt  on  the  decks  of  a  storm-tossed  ship,  when  a  lady  "butted 
in"  and  called  me  to  taw  for  the  use  of  language  which,  if  not 
elegant,  was  both  forcible  and  expressive,  to  whom  I  replied : 
"I  did  not  come  down  here  to  this  country  with  a  limber-backed 
Bible  in  my  hands  and  a  Gospel  Hymn-book  to  rob  and  cheat 
the  people  as  they  have  been  to  the  extent  of  millions  of  dollars 


AN  EX- CONFEDERATE  MONUMENT. 

by  that  class  of  perambulating,  hypocritical  and  homeless  gyp- 
sies, and,  Madam,  in  order  that  I  might  not  be  taken  for  that 
class  of  thieves  and  demons  I  use  language  that  will  not  admit 
of  any  doubt  or  double  construction  on  that  score."  Some  one 
suggested  to  the  lady,  would  she  now  be  good  ? 

I  was  traveling  in  this  country  in  an  ambulance  which 
would  be  a  cross  between  a  circus  ticket  wagon  and  a  Pullman 
palace  car.  For  a  fact  it  was  a  very  gay  thing  on  wheels — 
sleeping  apartment,  kitchen  and  everything  else  combined — 
the  most  perfect  outfit  of  the  sort  that  I  or  one  in  forty  mil- 
lions ever  saw,  together  with  a  finely  harnessed,  spanking  span 
of  Kentucky  mules.  It  attracted  a  great  deal  of  attention. 

It  was  in  Griffith,  Georgia,  a  "prescription  town" — by  this 
is  meant  the  county  runs  the  grog  shop,  its  profits  helping  the 
tax-payer  out  (the  best  thing  I  ever  saw  in  which  any  consid- 
erable amount  of  whisky  entered).  It  was  along  toward  late 
in  the  evening  and  our  commissary  had  been  replenished  at  a 
grocery  store,  while  one  by  one  of  my  five  traveling  com- 
panions, a  nigger  on  the  water  wagon,  a  general  on  horseback, 
and  the  other  two  in  the  van,  went  for  the  liquids.  -We  had 
pulled  up  to  the  corner  of  a  prominent  street  and  the  law 
would  not  allow  the'  dispensers  of  whisky  to  sell  less  or  more 
than  a  quart  to  one  man  in  one  day.  So  we  had  to  take  it  one 
at  a  time  in  order  toi  get  a  supply  to  last  until  we  reached  a 
prohibition  town  below,  where  we  had  ordered  sent  from  At- 
lanta a  supply.  I  have  referred  to  these  prohibition  towns 
down  South  elsewhere  already  and  may  again  further  on. 

I  often  take  great  pleasure  in  wearing  a  richly  diamonded 
jewel  representing  the  degrees  of  honor  I  have  taken  in  life, 
which  was  presented  toi  me  by  a  body  of  men  whoi  may  have 
equals,  but  no  superiors  on  earth,,  and  by  a  woman  that  ought 
of  right  to  stand  first-class  and  does  in  my  estimation. 

Quite  a  number  of  men  had  collected  around  to  see  the 
show  and  to  ask  where  we  were  going  to  exhibit  and  all  such 


176  AN  EX-CONFEDERATE  MONUMENT. 

offensive  questions.  'Everybody,  white  or  black,  little  or  big, 
old  or  young,  took  us  to  be  traveling  gypsies.  I  was  holding 
the  lines,  for  my  turn  had  not  yet  come  to  go  for  John  Barley- 
corn. A  dozen  or  more  schoolgirls  of  sixteen  or  eighteen 
came  prancing  by.  I  heard  one  say  to  another,  and  they 
passed  it  all  around  within  my  hearing,  "Oh,  Jane,  he  is  the 
Sancho  Pansy  Great  Mogul  King  Bee  of  all  the  gypsies  in  all 
.  the  land.  Just  look  at  his  diamond  breast-plate." 

There  was  quite  a  number  of  High  Degree  men  around 
my  van  admiring  it  and  who  read  differently  from  my  "breast- 
plate" than  did  the  girls.  I  called  to  the  young  lady  and  beck- 
oned to  her  to  come  up,  which  she  did  very  reluctantly.  I 
said,  "My  young  lady,  I  want  to  tell  your  fortune.  Let  me 
see  your  right  hand."  I  knew  about  as  much  about  palmistry 
as  I  would  about  navigating  an  air  ship.  I  looked  at  her  face 
and  then  at  her  hand  and  in  substance  said :  "You  are  a  great 
and  close  observer.  If  you  are  not  standing  at  the  head  of 
your  class  it  is  because  you  do  not  want  to.  You  have  it  in 
your  power  to  do  as  you  may  in  this  world  and  there  is  a  bright 
future  before  you.  You  come  of  a  noble  family.  Be  you 
sure  to  be  governed  by  your  first  impressions  and  you  will 
never  go  wrong."  All  around  thought  this  to  be  "a  free 
sample,"  and  it  was  another  tub  to  a  whale. 

Her  father  unbeknown  to  me  was  standing  close  by  and 
he  wore  a  "breast-plate"  that  would  nearly  match  mine.  About 
this  time  a  man  came  up  who  was  known  by  everybody  in  the 
city,  who  was  looking  for  me  and  without  further  ado  jumped 
into  the  seat  saying,  "We  will  camp  so-and-so  to-night,"  a 
very  short  distance  from  the  city  and  a  noted  camp-ground, 
and  they  took  it  for  granted  that  I  was  a  gypsy  king — and 
hither  they  repaired  in  great  numbers. 

It  was  two  o'clock  the  next  morning  before  we  retired. 
My  negro  cook  had  used  up  the  five  pounds  of  extra  Java 
ground  coffee.  My  right  hand  man  had  emptied  all  the  bottles. 


AN  EX-CONFEDERATE  MONUMENT.  177 

Several  of  the  ladies  insisted  in  declaring  that  such  coffee  they 
had  not  tasted  in  years,  and  Sambo,  nigger  like,  had  sliced 
up  my  choice  Cincinnati  sugar-cured  ham  and  the  ladies  were 
loud  in  declaring  it  the  best  they  had  ever  tasted.  Man  never 
lived  who  enjoyed  himself  more  than  I  did  that  night. 

I  was  taken  for  a  Yankee  and  was  so  talked  to,  having 
previously  cautioned  my  men  and  traveling  companions  not 
to  give  me  away.  After  my  visitors  had  said  about  all  they 
had  to  say  about  Yankees  coming  down  South,  etc.,  etc.,  it 
was  agreed  that  if  they  all  came  down  like  I  did  they  would  be 
voted  as  good  people  notwithstanding  the  results  of  their  first 
visit  in  force,  for  I  was  then  in  the  center  of  what  was  Sher- 
man's March  to  the  Sea.  None  but  the  men  who  had  said 
nothing  knew  who  I  was  and  what  I  was. 

I  asked  the  attention  of  all  while  I  told  them  that  I  was  an 
old  Confederate  soldier,  and  that  when  I  was  lying  for  dead 
on  the  battle-field  no  doubt  many  of  those  who  were  standing 
there  were  playing  in  the  band  wagon,  as  I  found  that  class 
the  most  disposed  to  insult  visitors  from  the  North.  This 
changed  the  talk  quickly,  and  then  we  had  to  go  all  over  the 
field  again  and  my  commissary  supplies  and  my  hospital 
"doin's"  were  all  gone. 

When  the  citizens  of  Chicago  joined  together  to  build  and 
erect  an  equestrian  statue  to  General  John  A.  Logan  in  Chi- 
cago, which  now  stands  on  the  Lake  Front,  a  monument  not 
only  to  the  heroi  and  statesman  it  represents,  but  to  the  great- 
ness of  the  people  of  Chicago  as  well,  I  decided  that  the  ex- 
Confederates  in  Chicago  should  turn  out  in  good  force  at  the 
unveiling  of  this  monument,  and  though  I  was  opposed  by 
several,  of  the  "clerky"  element  in  the  association,  who  are 
always  prepared  to  say  that  they  were  glad  that  the  war  ended 
as  it  did,  my  efforts  were  crowned  with  success,  for  we  had  in 
line  that  day  a  greater  number  of  ex-Confederate  soldiers  and 


178  AN  EX-CONFEDERATE  MONUMENT. 

people  of  Southern  birth  than  ever  before  on  any  occasion,  not 
excepting  the  unveiling  of  the  Grant  monument  in  Lincoln 
Park.  This  was  largely  from  the  fact  that  I  gave  a  banquet  at 
the  Tremont  House.  When  one  wants  to  draw  a  crowd  he 
needs  only  to  give  something  good  to  eat  and  drink. 


MORAL  AND  POLITICAL. 


Though  always  a  busy  man,  and  boy  too,  rarely  was  I 
so  engaged  but  that  I  could  stop  to  admire  a  rose  and  smell 
its  perfume  or  linger  around  a  bed  of  flowers,  listen  to  good 
singing,  stop  to  play  with  the  children,  eat  a  red  apple  or 
listen  to  a  good  story  if  briefly  and  pointedly  told,  and  I  have 
flattered  myself  that  the  best  people  I  ever  knew  were  made 
and  constructed  along  on  the  same  lines  and  after  the  same 
pattern. 

The  stories  of  the  war  will  live  forever  and  as  long  as 
a  noble  race  o>f  people  lives  to  honor  the  earth.  Near  Gren- 
ada, Mississippi,  lived  a  planter,  whom  we  will  call  Rice, 
but  that  was  not  his  name.  He  was  a  tax-and-debt-paying, 
good,  noble  citizen, — there  are  a  number  of  such  in  Mississippi. 
The  Confederates  had  taken  the  first  nibbling  at  his  chickens, 
ducks  and  geese.  Then  came  the  Federals,  when  his  niggers 
flew  away  and  left  his  many  cabins  vacant,  and  they  took, 
without  permission,  of  course,  what  the  Confederates  had  left 
and  went  into  his  smoke-house  and  took  all  that  there  was 
in  there,  and  then  burnt  up  all  of  his  fences,  etc.  After 
the  main  army  had  moved  on  a  company  of  Wisconsin  troops 
came  up. 

The  old  gentleman  and  his  wife  were  sitting  on  their  porch, 
or  veranda,  as  some  prefer  to  call  it.  The  troopers  asked, 
"What  chance  is  there  for  us  to  get  something  to  eat  here?" 

To  which  the  old  gentleman  replied :  "First  my  own  peo- 
ple took  nearly  all  and  then  you'uns  came  along  and  all  my  nig- 
gers left,  and  yous  took  my  cows  and  my  mules  and  my  horses 
and  went  into  my  smoke-house  and  took  all  that  I  had  there, 
and  then  yous  went  into  my  storehouse  and  took  all  I  had  there, 

179 


l8o  MORAL  AND  POLITICAL. 

and  then  yous  burnt  all  my  fences,  and  here  me  and  my  old 
wife  are  left  alone  without  a  morsel  to  eat  or  a  soul  on  earth 
to  administer  to  our  wants  and  to  bring  us  consolation,  and 
God  only  knows  what  may  befall  us  before  night."  But  rais- 
ing up  in  his  chair  he  said :  "Thank  God,  you  can't  take  away 
from  us  our  hopes  of  everlasting  salvation!" 

To  which  the  Federal  replied:  "Just  hold  on,  old  gent, 
the  Thirteenth  Maine  is  right  behind  us!" 

This  was  Neal  Dow's  temperance  regiment  that  left  their 
slimy  trail  wherever  they  crawled  through  the  South.  They 
delighted  in  taking  the  ivory  keyboards  off  the  pianos  they 
found  in  the  Southern  residences,  and  ringer  rings  off  the 
ladies'  hands  and  ear-rings  out  of  their  ears,  and  other  sim- 
ilar little  light-weight  things  which  would  sell  for  a  good  price. 
They  were  of  the  sort  that  "carpet-baggers"  were  made  of  and 
were  good  associates  and  companions  to  our  Southern  "scalla- 
wag." 

I  had  much  experience  with  the  "carpet-baggers"  and,  as 
my  reader  must  know  from  my  past  remarks,  with  the  "scalla- 
wag"  as  well.  Looking  back  to  the  same  from  this  distance, 
I  having  had  a  watchful  eye  on  all  of  them,  I  am  free  to  say 
that  I  never  knew  one  of  either  who  was  not  a  liar,  a  thief  and 
a  hypocrite,  and  in  the  interest  of  public  welfare,  and  if  an 
executive  of  the  great  Government,  did  I  have  the  power,  I 
would  have  wiped  from  the  face  of  the  earth  the  last  vestige  of 
both.  I  would  have  made  it  a  criminal  offense  for  any  one  to 
have  mentioned  their  names  afterwards. 

My  mother  gave  me  early  in  life  a  guide,  which  has  gov- 
erned me  largely  through  life.  It  was:  "Justice  and  judg- 
ment are  more  acceptable  to  the  Lord  than  sacrifices." 

And  another:     "Vengeance  is  mine,  saith  the  Lord,  and 
I  will  repay." 

I  have  always  aimed  to  do  justice  and  differentiate  in  favor 
of  the  public,  and  it  would  have  been  but  justice  to  the  people 


MORAL  AND  POLITICAL.  l8l 

to  have  ended  the  existence  of  such  a  brood  of  "hellions"  as 
were  all  "carpet-baggers"  and  "scallawags." 

And  again,  always  considering  myself — though  a  light- 
weight— a  servant  of  the  Lord  here  on  earth,  as  such  I  was 
always  up  in  arms  to  play  a  part  in  the  vengeance  question, 
and  always  in  the  name  of  the  great  I  Am,  for.it  is  one  of 
my  cardinal  beliefs  that  a  good  citizen  should  ever  be  ready  to 
execute  good  laws,  not  only  of  the  land  but  of  morality. 

I  was  once  called  upon  to  make  an  anti-secession  speech, 
and  that  man  who  had  the  credit  of  firing  the  first  gun  on  Fort 
Sumter  was  the  orator  of  the  day,  at  a  Democratic  barbecue. 
I  argued  that  if  each  State  had  a  right  to  draw  out  of  the 
Union,  then  each  district  in  the  State  had  a  right  to  withdraw 
from  the  county,  and  the  county  in  turn  from  the  district, 
and  the  precinct  in  turn  from  the  county,  and  finally  the  in- 
dividual from  the  precinct,  arid  thus  we  would  have  no  govern- 
ment or  society  and  become  savage  pagans. 

Wigfall  replying,  pointed  to  an  old  secession  slave-holder, 
who  never  had  paid  an  honest  debt  and  never  was  accused  of 
doing  an  honest  act,  and  asked  him  if  he  needed  law  or'govern- 
ment,  and  was  he  not  able  to  protect  himself?  .Such  I  have 
always  found  ruled  all  communities  where  no  law  or  order 
existed. 

The  preacher  in  Leadville,  Colorado,  when  that  city  was  in 
the  hands  of  a  murderous,  thieving  mob,  thought  that  he  would 
preach  from  the  text,  his  own  coining,  "God's  need  of  men." 
I  had  in  my  charge  an  O.  S.  P.,  a  pillar  of  the  church  in  his 
town  and  I  showed  him  the  notice.  He  declared  that  the  man 
ought  to  be  run  out  of  town,  that  the  proposition  was  sacrileg- 
ious, worse  than  profanity,  it  was  contrary  to  all  orthodoxy. 

I  told  him  that  I  was  going  to  hear  that  sermon  and  that 
he  would  go  along  with  me — I  knew  he  would,  because  he  was 
afraid  to  stay  with  himself.  That  preacher  was  going  to  tell 
us  just  exactly  what  was  needed.  Mr.  C went  with  me. 


1 82  MORAL  AND  POLITICAL. 

The  church  was  crowded.  The  sermon  was  a  success  and  my 

old  friend  C rushed  through  the  crowd  to  congratulate  the 

minister,  who  had  made  it  so  clear  to  the  people  that  had  come 
to  his  church  that  God  needed  men  in  Leadville  just  then  more 
than  in  any  other  spot  on  earth.  From  this  sermon  in  less  than 
forty-eight  hours  a  vigilance  committee  was  formed,  and  in  less 
than  forty-eight  hours  more  nearly  one  thousand  of  the  worst 
characters  who  had  ever  .flocked  to  a  mining  camp  "hoofed  it" 
over  the  ten  thousand  five  hundred  foot  elevation  of  a  moun- 
tain to  other  places. 

This  Lewis  T.  Wigfall,  referred  to  above  (who,  Sam  Hous- 
ton said,  was  in  such  haste  to  get  out  of  Arkansas  that  he 
sunk  the  books  of  a  bank  in  which  he  was  interested  in  White 
River)  on  this  occasion  quoted  from  a  speech  that  William  H. 
Seward  of  New  York  had  made  in  the  United  States  Senate, 
replying  to  what  some  "fire  eater"  had  said  as  to  there  not 
being  any  coercive  power  in  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  by  which  the  Southern  States  could  be  whipped  back 
into  the  Union,  to  which  Seward  replied,  "If  there  be  no  such 
law,  then  we  will  appeal  unto  a  higher  law!" 

It  was  then  and  there  that  I  became  a  great  believer  in  and 
friend  of  the  people  who  were  oppressed,  a  believer  of  an 
appeal  unto  a  higher  law.  It  is  what  we  are  trying  to  do  all 
the  while,  and  when  the  laws  of  our  country,  or  rather  their 
execution  by  the  office-seeker,  office-holder,  public  crib  pauper, 
fails  in  execution,  then  should  the  community  appeal  unto  a 
higher  law. 

Be  it  unto  "the  court  arms"  or  be  it  in  solemn  compact  to 
stand  each  by  the  other  through  weal  or  woe  in  punishing 
crime  or  wreaking  vengeance  on  the  perpetrators  of  crime  and 
the  violators  of  the  most  sacred  laws  and  rights  of  the  people. 

I  sometimes  think  that  there  are  about  as  many  criminals 
holding  office  in  some  States  of  the  United  States  as  there  are 
violators  of  the  law  in  the  penitentiary,  and  I  have  never 


MORAL  AND  POLITICAL.  183 

expressed  this  opinion  publicly  but  that  it  received  warm  accla- 
mation. I  was  once  horrified  by  the  proposition  in  effect  that 
"there  are  more  people  who  pray  for  an  appetite  to  eat  some- 
thing than  there  are  who  pray  for  something  to  eat." 

Then  I  was  a  hale,  hearty  young  man  and  knew  not  what 
derangements  of  the  digestive  organs,  either  by  dyspepsia  or 
from  middle  age  or  old  age  could  be  brought  about. 

Another  proposition  which  horrified  me  was  that  it  was 
much  easier  to  corrupt  a  judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  by 
bribery  than  it  would  be  to  bribe  a  newly  elected  or  appointed 
justice  of  the  peace;  that  it  was  more  easy  to  reach  a  United 
States  Congressman  and  yet  easier  a  United  States  Senator 
than  it  was  to  reach  a  newly  elected  State  Legislator  or 
Senator. 

I  never  lost  sight  of  these  propositions,  and  after  years  of 
experience  in  nearly  all  sorts  of  callings  and  business  and  with 
a  personal  acquaintance  second  to  no  man  in  the  Union  among 
politicians  as  well  as  the  common  people,  millionaires  and 
others,  the  propositions  are  not  so  horrifying  as  when  I  was  a 
boy,  when,  being  sincere  and  honest  myself,  I  so  considered 
everybody  else. 

I  have  had  dealings  with  people,  a  great  number  of  them, 
who  were  incorruptible — people  beyond  a  price,  who  were 
honest  in  all  they  did  and  thought.  Yet  many  of  these  were 
wrong  in  no  inconsiderable  part  of  their  thoughts.  They  were 
right  in  that  they  would  have  died  for  their  beliefs.  Such 
men  are  to  be  respected,  honored  and  revered.  They  are  more 
plentiful  in  some  countries  than  in  others.  I  have  never  heard 
of  one  living  in  Spain  or  Mexico,  excepting  it  was  on  the  ques- 
tion of  religion,  solid  Roman  Catholic.  The  Anglo-Saxon 
race  produces  more  of  them  than  all  the  other  races  on  the 
earth  combined,  and  it  is  therefore  that  we  are  ruling  the 
world,  and  as  our  sphere  of  usefulness  becomes  larger  and 
larger  by  our  ever  expanding,  there  will  be  more  and  more 


184  MORAL  AND  POLITICAL, 

demand  for  upper-case,  truthful,  honorable,  noble,  just  men, 
and  women  too,  for  "she  who  rocks  the  cradle  rules  the  world," 
but  it  is  not  she  who  rocks  it  through  a  wet  nurse  or  a  kinder- 
garten, but  the  mother  who  was  raised  by  a  mother  and  there- 
fore knows  how  to  raise  men,  manly  men,  men  who  will  never 
spell  their  middle  names  out  or  part  their  hair  in  the  middle  or 
spend  hours  before  a  glass  like  a  Miss  Nancy  dressing  and 
primping  to  catch  the  eye,  men  who  aspire  to  go  higher  and 
shed  more  light  on  the  world  and  make  it  possible  for  more 
to  ascend  higher  on  the  scale  of  human  greatness. 

Our  country  today  has  more  calls  for  men  of  this  class 
than  before.  While  we  are  sending  school  teachers  out  to  the 
Philippines  and  to  San  Domingo,  and  those  whom  we  are  send- 
ing may  be  able  to  answer  back  in  the  course  of  an  age  or  two 
whether  the  "Constitution  follows  the  flag"  or  not,  if  the 
teachers  whom  we  are  sending  as  aids  of  our  Government  to 
teach  the  people  the  good  Anglo-Saxon  three  R's,  law  and 
order  are  doing  this,  they  are  doing  much  better  than  our 
religious  denominations  have  done  in  ninety  cases  out  of  one 
hundred  in  sending  out  their  missionaries  to  pagan  lands.-  If 
they  are  not,  they  had  better  be  recalled  and  another  army 
of  soldiers  sent  there  who  will  execute  the  demands  of  the 
age,  which  as  I  read  them.1  will  eradicate  all  ignorance,  super- 
stition, barbarous  paganism  and  deviltry  or  meanness,  and 
clear  the  face  of  the  earth  for  a  higher  and  better  people, 
as  was  done  by  the  founders  of  this  great  Government. 

In  the  next  fifty  years  the  goody-goody  element  in  the 
United  States  will  be  counted  with  the  things  that  have  passed 
beyond  recall,  and,  like  the  blue  laws  of  our  Puritanic  New 
Englanders  of  old,  be  pointed  to  with  "was  it  possible?" 

One  in  this  enlightened  age  and  day  can  read  over  these 
New  England  blue  laws  but  to  question  the  sanity  of  the  people 
or  to  doubt  their  leaders'  accursed  hypocrisy;  one  of  the  two 


MORAL  AND  POLITICAL.  185 

always  follows.  Yet  those  laws,  brutal  as  they  were,  evolved 
into  the  better  and  more  just  ones. 

The  goody-goody  people  of  the  period  in  which  lived 
better  than  thou  element  of  part-the-hair-on-the-side  women 
and  in  the  middle  men  have  been  a  great  schooling  for  the 
thinking  people.  The  thoughts  they  are  thinking  are  fast 
evolving  into  practical  shape,  as  may  be  seen  by  any  observ- 
ing, intelligent  citizen  in  the  organization  of  civic  federations 
and  similar  Societes  and  Associations  all  over  our  land  wherein 
no  office-seeking  hypocrite  can  become  a.  member,  but  only  men, 
tax  and  debt  payers,  people  who  ever  stand  ready  for  better 
and  more  honest  government  but  who  could  not  be  induced 
to  run  for  office. 

Men  who  pledge  one  and  each  to  the  other  to  ferret  out, 
expose  and  oppose  and  by  word  and  deed,  and  money  as  well, 
defeat  the  unworthy  place-seeking  men  or  party ;  to  expose  the 
past  history  and  record  of  all  the  bribe-takers  and  boodlers  and 
grey  wolves  and  grafters — these  associations  and  clubs  are 
being  formed  all  over  the  land,  and  it  will  not  be  many  years 
before  the  false  teacher  and  preacher  and  foxy,  crafty  poli- 
tician will  no  longer  live  at  the  public  crib,  and  honest  laws 
will  be  enacted  and  dishonest  ones  will  be  repealed,  and  the 
judge  on  the  bench  will  decide  by  them  and  not  from  and  by 
the  influence  and  bribes  that  he  may  have  received  before  he 
was  elected  by  corporations. 

What  chance  has  any  honest  litigant  in  any  court  before 
any  judge  who,  before  being  nominated  for  the  office — which 
pays  a  salary  of  five  thousand  dollars  a  year — was  required  to 
pay  twenty-five  hundred  dollars  to  his  party  ringsters  for  a 
nomination,  party  slush  fund,  then  after  his  nomination  five 
thousand  more  to  the  party  managers  to  be  divided  out  among 
the  local  bosses,  and  they  in  turn  to  the  gin-mills  for  booze? 
Then  on  top  of  this  an  additional  and  in  advance  ten  per  cent 


1 86  MORAL  AND  POLITICAL. 

of  his  first  two  years'  salary,  one-half  for  the  State  party  or- 
ganization and  the  other  half  for  the  National  party  ? 

My  readers  must  not  say  that  it  was  only  Democrats  who 
did  this,  or  only  Republicans,  for  there  is  not  a  man  who  reads 
this  book  so  accursed  ignorant  as  not  to  know  that  the  worst 
trust  in  the  United  States  is  the  trust  which  was  formed  and 
exists  between  the  party  managers,  who  get  together  to  formu- 
late their  plans  to  plunder  the  people.  Could  any  one  expect 
to  go  before  this  judge  and  get  honesty  in  any  case  against 
SL  corporation  or  concern  which  had  furnished  him  the  money 
to  pay  those  different  assessments? 

The  delay  in  the  execution  of  the  laws  is  the  greatest  of 
crimes.  The  judges  are  responsible  for  this  more  than  the 
lawyers  are  who  come  before  him.  All  judges  are  lawyers, 
but  not  all  lawyers  are  thieves  or  rascals.  Those  who  are  not 
never  hold  office,  but  are  in  the  employ  of  rich  people  and  cor- 
porations who  employ  them  to  watch  their  interests  and  keep 
them  from  harm  or  trouble. 

I  know  several  lawyers  who  receive  from  twenty-five  to 
one  hundred  and  twenty-five  thousand  dollars  a  year  salary  as 
chief  counsel  who  earn  their  salary  several  times  over  each 
year.  This  may  sound  strange  to  some  people  and  especially 
to  those  who  know  little  of  commerce  or  trade  and  its  im- 
mensity. 

If  I  were  to  state  here  the  amount  o<f  dollars  earned  per 
mile  by  the  railroads  of  the  United  States,  the  man  who  thinks 
that  he  is  doing  a  big  business  in  picking  berries  to  pick  the 
little  ones  and  the  rotten  ones  first  and  put  them  in  the  bottom 
of  the  basket,  and  then  the  big  ones  on  the  top,  would  say  that 
I  was  prevaricating.  The  figures  would  astonish  even  thous- 
ands who  are  engaged  in  commercial  pursuits.  Go  inquire  for 
yourself,  by  writing  to  the  editor  of  your  best  paper  and  ask 
him:  i.  How  many  miles  of  railroad  are  there  in  the  United 


MORAL  AND  POLITICAL.  187 

States?  2.  What  are  the  average  gross  receipts  per  mile  per 
year? 

The  intelligence  of  the  average  men  o>f  the  United  States  is 
very  small  indeed  as  compared  with  the  volume  of  business 
done  therein.  If  you  would  see  how  little  the  man  of  average 
intelligence  knows  about  the  commerce  of  the  United  States, 
propound  this  sort  o>f  a  question  to  any  of  your  acquaintances. 
Start  out  by  asking  him  if  he  knows  anything  about  the  Suez 
Canal,  which  connects  the  Mediterranean  Sea,  (near  where 
Moses  played  an  early  Yankee  trick  on  a  Mr.  Pharaoh  for  hav- 
ing made  his  people  make  brick  without  straw)  and  of  the 
wonderful  commerce  that  must  ,naturally  pass  through  it  be- 
tween the  Orient  and  the  West. 

Then  ask  him  if  he  has  any  knowledge  of  the  Soo  Canal 
which  connects  Lake  Superior  with  Lake  Huron. 

Be  sure  now  to  get  your  man  to  decide  that  he  has  a  knowl- 
edge of  these  canals.  Aid  him  to  a  better  knowledge  by.  show- 
ing him  the  map  of  the  countries  and  then  ask  him  point  blank 
what  he  would  suppose  the  relative  tonnage  that  passes 
through  these  two  would  be,  and  considering  that  the  Soo 
Canal  was  only  open  to  navigation  five  months  of  the  year, 
while  the  Suez  is  open  the  year  round.  Have  him  commit 
himself  well  so  that  he  can't  go  back  on  his  knowledge  when  he 
gets  wise. 

Then  ask  him'  as  to  the  relative  value  of  this  tonnage  each 
and  every  year.  After  getting  answers  from  a  few  of  your 
best  informed  people  then  sit  down  and  write  to  some  editor 
and  propound  the  questions  to  him  and  don't  be  surprised  if 
the  answer  comes  back  that  the  tonnage  of  the  Soo  Canal  is  ten 
times  greater,  though  much  less  than  half,  the  time  in  use,  and 
that  its  value  was  twenty  times  greater  and  that  the  ratio  was 
growing  more  and  more  every  year. 

It  is  possible  for  men  who  begin  to  think  themselves  old  to 
live  to  see  such  a  revolution  in  the  politics  of  our  country 


1 88  MORAL  AND  POLITICAL. 

brought  about  by  such  influences  as  I  have  cited,  that  the  courts 
of  our  country  will  not  have  one-tenth  to  attend  to  that  they 
have  now,  and  that  bribery  and  wrong  will  never  be  heard  of 
again. 

The  age  may  be  upon  us  when  all  of  our  best  captains  of 
industry  and  of  every  interest  of  man,  will  think  in  the  direc- 
tion of  better  government,  of  a  more  honest  execution  of  the 
laws,  and  it  is  the  belief  of  many  that  taxation  may  be  reduced 
one-half  or  even  more. 

In  -my  day  I  have  heard  much  of  "civil  service,"  which  is 
labeled  in  some  way  in  my  mind  as  "civil  robbery."  It  was  a 
"carpet-bag"  scheme  to  keep  in  office  their  accursed  villains 
down  South  and  afterwards  played  up  North  to  keep  old  sol- 
diers in  good  jobs  at  the  expense  of  the  taxpayer.  The  reason 
why  the  South  is  so  badly  governed  and  cursed  in  its  gov- 
ernment is  more  largely  from  the  fact  that  it  has  but  one  party 
than  from  any  other  cause  that  I  know.  Where  two  parties 
exist  in  any  state  or  community,  one  watching  the  other,  cor- 
ruption never  enters  until  the  party  trust  is  formed  as  referred 
to  before.  Since  the  party  trusts  were  formed,  the  man  of 
affairs  has  found  that  general  corruption  ensued,  and  unless  the 
taxpayer  and  the  business  man  organized  the  self-protecting 
associations  and  vigilance  committees  the  country  was  doomed. 


A  FEW  FOUNDATION  PRINCIPLES. 


Lord  Chesterfield  was  applied1  to  by  Dr.  Johnson,  the  first 
Englishman  to  think  of  making  a  dictionary,  asking  the  Lord 
to  patronize  him,  in  other  words  to  aid  him  financially.  Lord 
Chesterfield  turned  him  down  sharply.  Dr.  Johnson  went  on 
with  his  work  and  in  a  short  time  was  able  to  present  to  the 
public  proof  sheets  of  his  great  and  master  work.  He  sent 
one  to  Chesterfield,  who  promptly  wrote  to  him — now  that  he 
saw  it  was  a  success — that  he  would  be  pleased  to  aid  him, 
and  intimated  that  he  might  dedicate  the  work  to  him,  the 
aforesaid  Chesterfield,  the  leader  of  the  four  hundred  of  Eng- 
land at  that  time. 

Dr.  Johnson  promptly  replied  to  him*  in  substance : 

"Dear  Sir:  (It  is  said  that  he  did  not  even  call  him  'Dear 
Lord')  when  I  needed  you,  you  did  not  patronize  me.  Now  I 
don't  need  you,  and  you  shall  not  patronize  me  nor  I  you !" 

When  I  started  out  in  the  world  for  myself  and  needed 
patronage,  aid  and  assistance,  none  was  given  me,  and  but  for 
that  possibly  I  might  have  been  as  no  account  to  myself  and 
the  world  as  the  tens  and  tens  of  thousands  that  I  have  passed 
on  the  road  in  my  journey  through  life  have  proved  to  be. 

I  have  often  found  myself  in  a  condition  that  it  was  more 
pleasant  and  decidedly  more  profitable  for  me  to  fight  my  own 
battles  and  way  through,  than  it  was  to  bribe  or  feed  my  way 
through  the  army  of  leeches,  dead-beats  and  villains  that  stood 
before  me  ready  either  to  oppose  or  applaud  just  as  the  wind 
blew  and  pay  was  in  it  for  them. 

In  the  sense  the  word  is  usually  used  I  never  was  a  poli- 
tician. Being  an  American  born,  a  descendant  from  a  noble 
stock  of  grand  government  founders,  I  am  a  politician,  and 

189 


A    FEW    FOUNDATION    PRINCIPLES. 

especially  on  National  affairs  and  questions  of  importance,  and 
no  one  has  ever  accused  me  of  being  cowardly  or  in  any  way 
backward  about  expressing  my  honest  American  opinion  on 
any  and  all  subjects — excepting  at  the  time  I  was  being  han- 
dled by  the  Secession  Committee  of  Public  Safety  down  in  Fort 
Bend  County,  Texas.  Then  I  did  not  show  the  white  feather, 
but  played  the  part  of  a  dissembler ;  not  that  I  had  one  drop  of 
abolitionist  blood  in  my  veins,  but  that  I  hated  their  methods 
as  much  as  I  hated  the  men  themselves  and  a  thousand  times 
more  than  I  hated  the  abolition  cause. 

I  had  been  called  upon  often  to  take  the  lead  in  perilous, 
doubtful  and  very  dangerous  undertakings,  and  I  have  more 
often  declined  than  accepted ;  the  latter  only  when  I  was  satis- 
fied in  my  own  mind  that  the  people  who  came  to  me  were  as 
honest  and  would  prove  themselves  as  brave  as  I  was  and 
might  prove  myself,  when  the  time  of  trial  came. 

I  never  yet  have  lost  a  cause,  a  move  or  measure  that  I  have 
championed  and  was  the  leader  of  or  in,  and  I  can  truthfully 
say,  defying  contradiction,  that  I  never  yet  financed  a  great 
undertaking  but  that  it  resulted  in  success,  save  and  excepting 
when  the  acts  of  God  interfered  and  prevented  or  the  acts  of  a 
set  of  hypocrites  and  confidence  men  betrayed. 

My  name  has  been  connected  with  many  gigantic  enter- 
prises in  all  sections  of  the  Western  and  Southern  portions  of 
the  Union,  and  but  for  the  absolute  necessity  of  my  having  to 
play  dummy  like  and  remain  in  the  rear  and  not  come  to  the 
front  myself,  I  might  have  been  more  extensively  known  than 
I  am.  There  are  but  few  localities  in  the  United  States  but 
where  I  have  been  tolerably  well  known  for  the  last  many 
years,  and  in  quite  a  number  of  them  I  am  glad  to  know  that  I 
have  been  known  and  talked  of  and  preached  about  as  being 
quite  a  different  man  to  what  the  majority  of  people  in  that 
locality  were. 

My  life  has  been  an  open  book,  the  pages  of  which  have 


A    FEW    FOUNDATION    PRINCIPLES. 

been  filled  with  honest  effort,  indefatigable  energy  and  indus- 
try, and  not  like  the  finger-board  on  the  roadside,  always  point- 
ing, but  never  going. 

An  editor  of  a  Texas  paper,  who  was  afterwards  elected 
to  the  State  Senate  and  then  to  a  judgeship  in  his  district 
called  me  the  "indefatigable  and  irrepressible  T.  N."  Had  he 
lived  he  might  have  gone  higher,  for  he  always  served  me 
nobly  and  met  the  people's  wants  most  grandly. 

It  was  "Beast  Butler"  of  New  Orleans  who  said  that :  "The 
people  had  called  him  everything  but  a  fool." 

I  might  say  that  I  have  been  called  everything  in  turn  by 
people,  and  that  I  have  been  called  a  fool  too,  and  it  was  then 
that  I  made  the  most  money,  for  I  have  never  made  money  out 
of  any  man  that  thought  I  was  smarter  than  he,  or  in  other 
words,  thought  that  I  was, too  smart  for  him  to  deal  with. 

I. never  made  a  horse  trade — I  have  bought  and  sold  many 
horses — and  I  never  got  the  better  oi  a  jockey  only  as  he 
thought  that  I  was  a  "know  nothing"  regarding  horse  flesh. 

In  my  day  I  have  heard  much  about  "worthy  people"  and 
especially  about  the  "worthy  poor."  I  early  set  in  life  as  a 
rule  that  nothing  was  worth  more  than  it  would  bring.  When 
one  talks  to  me  about  "worthy  people,"  I  ask,  What  is  their 
worth?  What  has  been  their  worth?  What  have  they  done 
to  contribute  to  the  wealth  and  worth  of  the  world?  Have 
they  been  industrious  ?  Honest  ?  Have  they  brought  joy  and 
gladness  to  any  ?  Have  they  paid  their  debts  ?  Have  they  be- 
come of  little  value  by  reasons  of  wear,  as  gold  pieces  and 
silver  pieces  will  become?  Then,  if  yes,  they  are  worthy;  but 
if  they  are  rusty  from  disuse,  if  they  have  done  no  one  good, 
if  they  have  not  improved,  beautified  and  advanced  the  world 
and  made  efforts  to>  make  two  blades  grow  where  one  formerly 
grew,  then  let  them  go  "over  the  hill  to  the  poorhouse"  and  see 
that  no  honest  taxpayer  is  required  to  pay  for  more  than  very 
cheap  rations  for  them. 


192  A    FEW    FOUNDATION    PRINCIPLES. 

The  cry  of  "pity  the  poor  and  aid  the  needy  and  distressed," 
in  about  ninety-nine  cases  out  of  a  hundred,  is  a  cry  emanating 
from  an  accursed  multi faced  hypocrite,  who  is  working  the 
people,  being  too  lazy  to  work  him  or  herself,  office-seeking, 
public  crib-feed  politician  like. 

I  at  one  time  had  a  large  business  in  the  City  of  Chicago 
(and  I  never  lost  interest  in  anything  that  is  or  was  good), 
and  there,  as  everywhere  else  that  I  had  lived,  it  soon  got  out 
that  I  was  "easy  to  work,"  that  I  was  a  "shining  mark,"  that 
I  was  "a  soft  snap,"  and  in  a  very  short  time  the  dead-beats 
and  the  paupers  and  the  beggars  and  the  liars  and  the  thieves 
and  the  hypocrites  and  the  confidence  men  commenced  coming 
in  great  numbers  and  it  being  good  old  Democratic  hard  times 
there  was  considerable  excuse  for  such  conditions. 

I  provided  myself  with  a  rock  crusher,  turned  by  hand,  for 
the  able  bodied,  and  other  contrivances  for  the  less  able,  and  I 
gave  employment  and  work  to  every  caller,  and  I  made  them 
earn  all  they  got  from  me,  and  in  a  very  short  time  there  were 
but  few  that  came  around  me,  and  thos'e  that  stayed  around  me 
were  of  the  "worthy  poor  and  needy,"  and  I  provided  for  them 
and  aided  them  and  I  am  happy  today  to  know  that  I  can  point 
out  not  just  one  or  two  but  many,  who  are  today  in  good  cir- 
cumstances, that  I  aided  to  an  honest  living,  and  when  they 
were  being  chased  by  hungry  wolves  my  cable-tow  pulled  them 
away  from  the  hungry  beasts'  grab. 

I  am  no  more  of  an  enemy  to  charitable  institutions  than  I 
am  to  foreign  missionary  societies,  and  I  am  not  half  so  great 
an  enemy  to  these  as  would  be  ninety  -per  cent  of  my  fellow 
men  who  know  as  much  about  them  as  I  do  and  who  have  come 
across  and  in  contact  with  them  not  only  here  at  home  but  in 
foreign  countries. 

I  often  think  of  "John  Randolph  of  Roanoke,"  whose  his- 
tory and  record  should  be  known  by  every  American,  and  is  if 
that  American  is  worthy  of  citizenship.  Mr.  Randolph  was  a 


A   FEW    FOUNDATION    PRINCIPLES.  193 

great  admirer  of  fine  horses  (I  never  knew  a  good  and  noble 
man  who  did  not  love  women  and  horses,  and  too  often  good 
wine).  He  was  at  a  race  when  Smith  came  up  to  him  and 
said: 

"Mr.  Randolph,  you  want  to  bet  on  the  brown  horse;  I'll 
bet  on  the  black,  and  my  friend  Jones  will  hold  the  stakes." 

Mr.  Randolph  looked  around,  first  at  Smith  and  then  at 
Jones,  and  then  asked  : 

"Who  in  —  will  hold  your  friend  Jones?"  Who  holds 
the  missionaries  and  the  collectors  for  the  poor  the  worthy 
poor? 

I  know  that  many  of  my  readers  will  object  to  the  dashes 
I  use  in  recording  the  correspondence  and  conversations  with 
many  people.  An  old  Methodist  preacher  down  in  Texas 
refused  to  have  anything  further  to  do  with  me  and  my  cause 
because  the  printer  accidentally  put  in  a  long  half  inch  dash 
instead  of  a  word  and  that  old  preacher  said  that  I  meant  to 
say  "damn  it."  The  world  is  full  of  his  sort,  who  judge  all 
by  themselves,  and  whose  mind  is  so  full  of  guile  and  evil  that 
it  is  but  natural  for  them  to  think  ditto  of  all  others. 

I  was  happy  to  know  always  afterward  during  my  life 
that  the  old  preacher  lost  more  than  I  did  and  that  through  the 
negligence  of  the  printer  for  once  in  life  I  lost  but  very  little 
as  compared  with  what  I  would  have  lost  had  he  put  in  the 
two  proper  words  instead  of  a  long  dash. 

I  was  once  called  upon  to  introduce  to  an  audience  a  man 
whom  the  world  knows  only  in  part  and  to  whom  I  have  been 
frequently  likened  and  compared.  I  refer  to  the  late  George 
Francis  Train.  I  have  been  considered  a  good  toast-master 
by  people  who  have  not  come  across  better,  as  I  have. 

After  introducing  my  friend  and  making  as  much  of  a 
panegyric  as  I  could,  he  told  them  in  substance  that  when  he 
was  a  baby  his  mother  died  leaving  him  to  be  reared  by  his 
old  grandmother,  a  New  Englander  of  Puritanical  descent 


194  A   FEW    FOUNDATION    PRINCIPLES. 

who  was  so  straight  up  that  she  leaned  back  a  little,  very 
religious  and  very  exacting.  She  thought  too  much  of  George 
to  send  him  to  the  little  "red  schoolhouse,"  but  employed  a 
governess,  who  taught  him  all  there  was  to  be  taught  from, 
in  and  out  of  that  great  American  educational  work  that  I 
have  heretofore  referred  to,  "The  Webster  Elementary  Spell- 
ing book,"  after  which  George  had  a  preceptor  and  a  tutor 
imported  from  New  York,  sent  by  the  old  lady's  commission 
merchant,  who 'attended  to  the  receiving  of  and  the  selling  of 
her  San  Domingo  sugar  and  rum,  and  no  doubt  slaves  from 
Africa  in  her  earlier  life. 

This  man  was  a  thorough  up-to-date  "all-rounder,"  the 
best  that  Train  had  ever  seen  in  all  his  life.  He  was  a  first- 
class  hypocrite  and  made  the  old  lady  believe  that  he  was  a 
Christian  per-se,  rather  than  a  Pharisee. 

This  good  grandmother  told  George,  and  that  with  the  full 
consent  and  approval  of  the  "all-rounder,"  that  if  he  wanted 
to  be  a  good  man  and  a  great  man  like  George  Washington 
and  Clay  and  Webster  and  Otis  and  all  the  other  great  men 
who  were  then  prominent  before  the  American  people,  he  must 
not  use  tobacco,  chew  or  smoke,  that  he  must  not  drink 
whisky,  rum,  wine  or  beer,  that  he  must  not  use  any  cuss 
words,  that  he  must  not  play  cards  or  know  one  from  the 
other,  that  he  must  go  to  church  every  Sunday,  and  that  he 
must  at  all  times  conform  to  the  customs  and  nabits  of  the 
old  lady's  ideas  and  ideals,  etc. 

All  of  which  young  George  took  in  as  Bible  truths.  When 
he  arrived  at  the  age  of  eighteen  his  grandmother  thought 
that  it  was  time  for  him  to  go  out  and  see  the  world  and  get 
in  touch  with  those  great  men,  and  he  was  fitted  out  iri  a 
style  befitting  his  position  and  standing  with  the  world  as 
being,  and  as  he  was,  the  wealthiest  heir  on  the  American 
continent.  Vanderbilts  were  not  in  it  at  that  time,  nor  were 
there  any  Rockefellers. 


A    FEW    FOUNDATION    PRINCIPLES.  195 

His  guide,  conductor,  educator  and  pilot  the  "all-rounder" 
was  at  home  on  this  sort  of  a  trip,  and  George  said  that  there 
was  nothing  that  so  surprised  him  as  to  find  out  when  he  got 
to  Washington  that  not  a  single  one  of  these  great  men  that 
his  grandmother  had  held  up  to  him  but  what  chewed,  and 
smoked  and  drank  whisky  and  used  all  sorts  of  patent  cuss 
words,  gambled  and  got  drunk  and  did  everything  that  his 
grandmother  told  him  great  men  never  did. 

My  experience  with  the  world  has  been  just  about  the 
same  as  was  Mr.  Train's.  I  never  pained  my  old  mother  by 
telling  her  that  she  knew  nothing  about  the  world  and  what 
sort  of  people  the  so-called  great  people  of  the  world  were, 
both  as  respects  their  habits,  religion  and  morals. 

The  young  man  who  starts  out  in  this  world  thinking  that 
the  people  elsewhere  and  everywhere  else  are  any  better  than 
those  of  his  own  community  will  be  greatly  disappointed,  and 
his  disappointment  will  be  in  proportion  as  to  how  honest  and 
great  and  noble  he  was  esteemed  and  thought  of  in  his  birth- 
place. Often  I  have  thought  that  most  young  men  failed  in 
making  a  success  of  life  from  having  gotten  off  on  the  wrong 
track  in  this  respect. 

Never  have  I  seen  a  young  man  who  amounted  to  much 
in  this  world  but  whose  father,  or  the  one  responsible  for  his 
raising,  had  taken  great  pains  in  showing  him  the  world  and 
all  therein  just  as  it  was,  and  when  he  went  out  for  himself 
he  found  that  his  parents  or  guardians  had  not  lied  to  him, 
but  had  told  him  the  truth,  and  therefore  he  lived  to  honor 
and  respect  them. 

A  gentleman  who  owned  a  fine  rig,  had  a  beautiful  woman 
for  a  wife,  and  a  three-year-old  boy.  They  had  been  promis- 
ing the  boy,  "Well,  the  next  time  we  will  take  you,  Bob," 
over  and  again.  One  morning  they  made  the  same  promise 
and  drove  off,  when  the  boy  said  to  the  nurse : 

"There  goes  two  of  the  biggest  liars  that  ever  lived." 


196  A    FEW    FOUNDATION    PRINCIPLES. 

Nothing  that  that  father  or  mother  could  ever  do  for  that 
boy  could  change  his  first  impressions,  which,  as  all  must 
know,  are  the  impressions  that  follow  us  through  life. 

We  need  have  no  fears  of  the  boy  not  being  able  to  hold 
his  own  and  bring  honor  to  his  family  and  name  who  has 
been  properly  raised,  but  we  could  have  all  sorts  of  fears,  in 
fact  know  of  the  bad  future  in  store  for  the  boy  who  has  been 
falsely  raised,  that  in  his  education  he  had  been  deceived  by 
parents  or  teachers  who  concealed  the  truth  and  falsified  and 
discolored  facts. 

We  know  that  an  old  adage  says :  "As  the  twig  is  bent 
so  will  the  tree  incline,"  but  if  the  twig  is  bent  against  the 
high  and  prevailing  winds  that  it  will  have  to  grow  against, 
one  will  always  be  safe  in  knowing  that  the  tree  will  grow  in 
an  opposite  lean  from  the  way  it  was  planted. 

I  think  that  it  was  from  viewing  these  facts  that  some 
sage  originated  the  saying:  "The  road  to  hell  is  paved  with 
good  intentions." 

Had  I  taken  the  best  advice  that  was  ever  given  me,  many 
times  I  would  have  gone  to  ruin  in  a  jiffy. 

The  father  and  mother  of  a  little  four-year-old  girl  of  my 
acquaintance,  who  had  been  very  careful  in  her  associations 
were  horrified  to  hear  her  using  the  very  worst  of  bad 
boy's  street  slang  phrases  and  could  not  account  for  it.  It  was 
in  the  air — "The  bed  bug  has  no  wings  at  all  but  it  gets  there 
just  the  .same." 

The  Vendome  Column  in  Paris,  which  was  being  con- 
structed for  three  hundred  years,  costing  millions  and  millions 
and  representing  all  that  was  noble,  grand  and  magnificent  of 
the  French  people  and  of  France,  was  utterly  destroyed  by  an 
anarchist  of  the  Cummune  order  and  at  a  less  expenditure  for 
dynamite  than  it  would  cost  to  get  a  satisfying  dinner  for  one 
person  in  the  dining-car  of  this  train,  and  still  there  are  people 
who  prate  about  their  religion  and  who  are  of  the  "better  than 


A    FEW    FOUNDATION    PRINCIPLES.  197 

thou"  class  who  will  say  they  pray  for  such  and  will  carry 
roses  to  the  murderers  in  our  jails. 

We  may  plan  and  we  may  plant  and  plow  and  toil,  and  we 
may  garner  great  harvests  and  in  the  garner  all  the  fruits  of 
a  year's  toil,  la,boor  and  great  money  outlay  may  be  found,  yet 
a  playing  urchin  with  a  friction  match  may  destroy  all,  and 
that  too  not  intentionally.  Eternal  vigilance  is  no  more  the 
price  of  liberty  than  it  is  of  wealth. 

Water  never  runs  up  stream,  nor  do  straws  fly  against  the 
wind,  and  no  man  need  expect  profit  and  reward  from  any  sort 
of  dissipation  or  neglect  of  duties. 

The  commercial  agencies  report  that  there  are  only  three 
successes  out  of  one  hundred  starts  in  commercial  life.  This 
can  be  read  as  to  say  that  in  one  hundred  efforts  that  we  may 
make  to  rise  we  must  expect  to  be  knocked  down  ninety-seven 
times.  Thus  it  is  only  the  brave  and  persistent  who  succeed. 
It  is  not  the  number  of  times  that  one  is  knocked  down  that 
makes  the  man,  but  the  number  of  times  he  gets  up. 

I  have  many  acquaintances  in  this  world  who  would  have 
been  surrounded  with  wealth  in  their  old  age  if  that  wealth 
could  have  been  acquired  by  a  few  days',  a  few  weeks'  or  even 
a  few  months'  hard,  patient  toil,  economy  and  thought,  but  the 
idea  of  years  and  years  of  such  made  their  hearts  sick.  It  is 
very  possible  that  a  greater  per  cent  of  failures  than  has  been 
estimated  would  be  true  if  we  all  knew  what  was  in  store  for 
us.  That  hope  deferred  maketh  the  heart  sick  no  one  can 
doubt  but  it  is  only  from  ever  hoping,  ever  striving  and  look- 
ing for  a  reward  from  a  source  we  know  not  whence  it  cometh, 
for  duty  well  done  and  a  life  justly  lived  that  success  comes. 

The  one  who  upon  rising  in  the  morning  shakes  hands  with 
the  devil  first  of  all  other  acts  need  expect  but  little  else  but 
devilish  deeds  all  day.  It  calls  for  a  brave  heart  and  a  strong 
will  to  refuse  this  shake,  for  when  saints  are  asleep  the  devil 
is  around  seeking  for  the  early  bird,  who  is  often  caught  by 


IQ8  A   FEW    FOUNDATION    PRINCIPLES. 

him  instead  of  the  early  bird  catching  the  worm.  The  devil 
very  often  catches  the  early  bird,  but  more  often  the  late  one. 

When  only  a  boy  I  was  asked  by  an  elder  one  morning  to 
take  a  drink  with  him.  My  reply  was : 

"I  make  it  a  rule  not  to  shake  hands  with  the  devil  the  first 
thing  I  do  upon  getting  up  in  the  morning." 

We  walked  on  and  he  did  not  take  a  drink.  Fates  and 
fortunes  of  war  separated  me  from  this  young  man,  and  I  had 
lost  all  sight  of  him  for  thirty-five  years,  when  we  came  to- 
gether in  a  foreign  city  where  he  was  traveling  with  his  wife 
and  family.  He  made  himself  known  to  me  and  after  intro- 
ducing me  to  not  only  his  family  but  the  friends  who  were  trav- 
eling with  him,  said,  pointing  to  me : 

"All  this  and  all  that  I  am  and  possess  on  this  earth  I  owe 
to  him." 

He  then  told  the  circumstance  and  place  and  said  that  from 
not  shaking  hands  with  the  devil  the  first  thing  in  the  morn- 
ing in  the  way  of  taking  a  "cocktail"  or  some  other  "bracer"  he 
had  become  the  man  that  he  was. 

I  would  not  have  my  reader  believe  that  I  am  a  goody- 
goody  man  from  having  preached  this  little  sermon,  for  I  am 
like  the  professor  of  medicine  before  his  graduating  class.  He 
was  asked  by  one  of  the  young  students : 

"Professor,  you  have  told  us  about  this  'pathy  and  that 
'pathy  and  all  the  different  'pathies,  now  will  you  tell  us  what 
'pathy  to  use  to  cure  ?" 

The  professor  looked  up,  and  laying  down  his  specs  on  the 
table  said: 

"Young  men,  never  undertake  to  drive  a  tack  with  a  sledge 
hammer,  never  undertake  to  drive  a  spike  with  a  tack  hammer, 
but  when  you  come  up  against  a  case  that  is  perplexing  use 
anything  from  an  aurora  borealis  to  hell's  blazes." 

It  has  not  been  seldom  in  my  day  that  I  have  been  compelled 
to  paint  the  air  so  blue  a  buzzard  could  not  fly  in  it,  and  fill  it 


A    FEW    FOUNDATION    PRINCIPLES.  199 

with  fumes  that  a  saint  cotild  not  live  in,  in  order  to  get  rid 
of  devils  and  bring  about  a  harmonious  and  profitable  adjust- 
ment of  affairs. 

I  have  found  through  life,  not  only  from  my  own  per- 
sonal experience,  but  that  from  all  others  whose  confidence  and 
business  relations  I  have  found  worthy  of  cultivating,  that 
the  honest,  outspoken,  candid,  correct,  but  positive  man  who 
never  deviates  from  the  truth,  though  he  may  see  many  oppor- 
tunities where  by  lying  he  could  make  a  "pretty  penny,"  is  the 
man  who  succeeds  in  life;  he  is  the  man  who  sleeps  well  at 
night,  has  good  neighbors  and  is  the  man  who  is  always  pre- 
pared to  do  a  good  turn  for  another. 

My  life  has  not  been  the  success  it  might  have  been  had  my 
sympathies  for  the  poor  and  unfortunate  been  less  than  they 
were.  I  have  spent  too  much  time  and  hard-earned  money 
trying  to  do  the  impossible  thing  with  that  class  of  people  who 
are  on  the  beg,  the  sponge  and  the  dead-beat. 

The  impossible  things  are  the  impossible,  and  here  comes  in 
my  good  old  Webster  Spelling  Book  words  I  referred  to  early 
in  this  volume  of  "incompatibility"  and  "incomprehensibility." 

My  mother  was  a  devout  woman,  as  has  been  before  re- 
lated. I  had  two  marriageable  sisters.  One  was  being  ad- 
dressed by  a  very  worthy  and  acceptable  young  man  whose 
father  was  a  "Hard-shell"  Baptist  preacher.  Mother  thought 
that  it  was  her  duty  to  inquire  into  the  young  man's  religious 
belief.  It  was  about  like  my  own,  and  the  young  man  was 
feeling  good,  and  without  any  idea  of  being  impertinent  or  dis- 
respectful he  remarked  that  "there  are  some  things  impossible 
to  God  Almighty." 

The  old  lady  drew  back  in  amazement  and  was  too  awe- 
struck to  think  of  making  a  reply  and  the  young  man  continued 
and  said : 

"Now,  how  would  He  go  about  making  two  mountains 
without  having  a  valley  between  ?" 


2OO  A   FEW    FOUNDATION   PRINCIPLES. 

This  "cooked  the  young  -man's  goose"  to  all  intents  and 
purposes. 

There  are  other  things  that  our  Creator  would  not  under- 
take to  do. 

"Don't  lose  a  cent  on  any  person  that  won't  lose  a  cent  on 
themselves." 


BUSINESS  INSIGHT. 

The  agricultural  industry  was  never  patronized  until  Sir 
Robert  Peel,  the  great  artist  and  painter,  took  hold  of  it,  and  it 
is  said  that  he  got  his  tenants  and  farm  hands  iron  plows. 
After  an  absence  of  a  few  months  he  returned  to  his  estate,  to 
find  that  the  peasants  had  thrown  all  the  plows  under  the  hedge 
and  had  used  none  of  them,  but  had  planted  the  crops  with 
the  old-way  forked  stick  for  a  plow,  and  as  do  the  pagans  and 
the  dark-age  people  in  all  other  lands  and  countries  yet. 

He  called  up  his  foreman  and  asked  for  an  explanation, 
which  was  given  in  a  series  of  resolutions  adopted  by  his  ten- 
ants in  substance  setting  forth  that: 

"WHEREAS,,  We,  the  tenants  and  peasants  of  his  lord- 
ship's estate,  have  found  that  the  weeds  do  grow  more  prolific 
and  the  crops  that  are  planted  grow  less  fruitful  and  abundant 
in  ground  that  has  been  plowed  by  an  iron  plow ; 

"Therefore,  Be  it  resolved  that  we  will  no  longer  use 
them."  « 

The  facts  were  that  the  pagan  fools  had  not  used  them  at 
all,  but  had  thrown  them  under  the  hedges. 

I  have  come  across  more  of  this  sort  of  people  in  the  world 
than  it  is  possible  for  me  to  convey  a  correct  idea  of  to  any 
one.  There  are  people  today  who  are  following  their  fathers' 
avocations — farmers,  who  are  so  absolutely  ignorant  of  all 
the  laws  of  plowing,  planting,  production,  cultivating  and  har- 
vesting, that  no  one  should  be  surprised  at  their  disgraceful 
poverty  from-  a  free  and  enlightened  American  standpoint. 
Here  these  same  men  talk  politics  and  religion,  and  they  "beat 
the  band." 

I  am  old  enough  to  recollect  the  time  when  our  shoes  were 


2O2  BUSINESS   INSIGHT. 

all  made  on  one  last,  rights  and  lefts  and  big  and  little,  and 
when  the  cobbler  taught  me  how  to  make  shoes  and  boots 
at  our  old  farmhouse  told  me  that  there  was  a  Yankee  inven- 
tion that  made  shoes  rights  an£  lefts  I  did  not  know  what  he 
was  talking  about. 

I  am  old  enough  to  remember  the  time  when  we  pulled  the 
hemp  and  the  flax  that  we  rotted,  that  we  hackled  and  that  we 
chackled  and  that  we  spun  on  the  old  spinning  wheel  that  oc- 
cupies the  most  honored  place  in  my  private  office  today,  and 
with  this  home-made  hand-spun  flaxen  thread  we  made  our 
shoe  leather  thread  and  bristled  the  point  from  our  home- 
raised  hog  bristles. 

I  am  old  enough  to  know  and  to  well  recollect  what  life 
was  when  one  suit  of  jeans  that  was  woven  at  our  home  and 
cut  and  made  by  our  mothers  and  sisters  was  quite  good 
enough  for  a  twelve-year-old  boy  for  one  year's  wear,  and 
when  "drawers"  had  never  been  hard  of,  much  less  used,  by 
our  elders. 

I  can  remember  when  hog  and  hominy  and  corn  bread  with 
New  Orleans  molasses  were  luxuries.  These  were  "the  good 
old  days  of  the  past"  that  we  often  hear  people  croak  about. 
They  are  the  days  from  which  the  ignorant  farmer  and  poor 
cuss  referred  to  above  came  and  have  not  improved  upon. 

When  I  meet  a  man  of  my  age  and  older,  and  see  by  his 
gait  that  he  was  raised  on  a  farm,  and  tell  by  the  cut  of  his 
clothes  that  he,  has  not  only  added  to  the  world's  wealth,  but  to 
his  own  advancement  and  power  for  pleasure  and  enjoyment, 
methinks  of  those  good  old  times;  but  when  I  in  traveling 
through  the  country  of  my  birth  pass  by  the  places  of  those 
poor  farmers,  my  very  spirit  revolts  and  my  mother's  religion 
somewhat  goes  back  on  me,  for  I  see  close  by  the  old  "little 
red  schoolhouse"  that  proved  of  no  benefit  to  those  poor 
farmers. 

In  traveling  in  foreign  parts  of  the  world  I  am  a  close  ob- 


BUSINESS   INSIGHT.  2O3 

server,  and  I  have  made  it  a  rule  through  life  that  when  I  ar- 
rive at  a  new  town  or  city,  even  in  my  own  country,  but  espe- 
cially in  foreign  lands,  to  rise  early — at  four  or  five  a.  m. — and 
go  direct  to  the  market  place,  where  I  see  brought  for  sale  by 
the  farmers,  horticulturists  and  hucksters  the  best  the  country 
can  produce,  and  a  glance  tells  me  what  sort  of  people  that 
country  produces. 

It  was  a  Frenchman  who  said :  "Show  me  the  songs  of  a 
people  and  I  will  tell  you  who  and  what  they  are." 

I  need  only  to  be  told  of  what  the  people  live  on  to  tell  you 
what  that  people  are,  whom  they  are,  and  what  they  will  be  in 
generations  to  come. 

In  making  man  God  created  him  out  of  more  of  his  most 
precious  previous  creations  than  He  used  in  the  fabrication, 
construction  or  make  of  any  other  animal,  fish  or  fowl ;  where- 
fore the  man  of  God's  creation  requires  a  greater  variety  of 
eatables  than  any  other  animal,  and  just  in  proportion  as  he  is 
restricted  to  only  a  few,  and  they  possibly  of  the  most  worth- 
less in  nutrition,  blood,  brain  and  brawn-giving  qualities,  man 
becomes  degenerate  and  like  begets  like  or  loss  in  all  things. 

As  a  farmer  I  was  a  success  when  it  rained  as  much  as  it 
should  or  when  it  did  not  rain  to  make  a  flood  and  wash  me 
out.  As  a  merchant  I  was  a  success  because  I  never  lied  to  the 
people  and  told  them  that  I  was  selling  goods  below  cost.  I 
have  never  found  it  necessary,  as  I  have  found  it  the  case  with 
so  many  others,  to  tell  a  lie  and  continuously  lie  to  sell  my 
goods,  and  I  have  often  thought  that  it  was  because  my  goods 
were  always  good  goods  and  the  people  knew  good  from  bad. 
The  "want-something-for-nothing"  man  is  a  poor  wretch  who 
never  is  able  to  pay  his  debts  and  who  never  wears  a  suit  of 
good  clothes  or  in  any  way  seems  at  ease  or  to  have  comfort 
and  never  enjoys  ife. 

That  "all  things  come  to  him  who  waits"  is  as  true  as 
Holy  Writ,  but  most  people  are  too  impatient.  I  can  tell  as 


2O4  BUSINESS   INSIGHT. 

many  good  fish  stories  as  any  man,  but  I  never  made  a  good 
fisherman;  my  patience  would  not  admit  oi  it.  I  like  to  act 
the  host  and  have  my  friends  dine  with  me,  but  I  never  would 
have  made  a  "waiter."  I  have  never  waited  for  any  one  and 
never  will.  When  one  tells  me  he  will  be  at  a  certain  place  at 
a  certain  time  and  is  not  there  I  set  him  down  as  a  liar  and 
would  never  trust  him  again  for  any  amount  or  for  any  small 
sum.  It  is  a  fact,  dispute  it  as  you  may,  that  a  man  who  will 
steal  a  pin  will  steal  a  horse  if  he  can  only  keep  from  being 
detected. 

The  man  who  is  a  good  citizen  only  from  fear  of  going  to 
the  penitentiary  is  not  to  be  depended  upon  any  more  than  is 
the  man  who  is  a  good  Christian  only  from  fear  of  going  to 
hell.  There  are  people  in  the  world  who  cannot  refrain  or 
keep  from  doing  evil,  as  much  as  there  are  other  people  in  this 
world  who  have  no  desire  to  commit  any  sort  of  evil.  The 
man  who  has  no  desire  to  drink  whisky  and  get  drunk  or  gam- 
ble or  other  unlawful  and  immoral  acts  is  entitled  to  no  credit 
as  compared  with  the  poor  unfortunate  misborn  people  who 
naturally  incline  that  way. 

Men's  ideas  of  right  and  wrong  are  at  great  variance,  and 
he  who  sets  himself  up  to  be  the  judge  in  many  matters  that 
would  seem  of  trifling  importance  is  the  one  who  the  most 
often  is  entitled  to  ridicule. 

It  is  the  thoughts  of  a  moment  that  are  worth  a  life  of  toil 
and  these  thoughts  come  but  once  or  twice  in  a  man's  lifetime, 
and  it  was  the  poet  sage,  and  he  was  a  poet  no  more  than  a 
sage,  who  declared  that: 

"There  is  a  tide  in  the  affairs  of  men, 
Which,  taken  at  the  flood,  leads  on  to  fortune; 
Omitted,  all  the  voyage  of  their  life 
Is  bound  in  shallows  and  in  miseries." 

It  is  the  impressionable  man,  the  one  who  acts  on  first  im- 


BUSINESS   INSIGHT.  2O5 

pulses  and  impressions,  all  other  things  being  equal,  that  is  the 
successful  man.  He  who  goes  blindly  at  work  without  having 
first  calculated  where  to  put  his  best  licks  so  that  he  can  accom- 
plish the  most  is  little  better  than  a  blind  man  casting  about  in 
a  wilderness  for  an  open  field. 

When  I  was  a  young  man  and  was  striving  for  a  start  in 
the  world  I  figured  out  how  that  when  I  had  made  my  first 
thousand  dollars  I  would  be  able  to  do  something;  when  I  had 
made  that  I  found  that  it  would  take  ten,  and  the  world  kept 
on  moving  in  advance  of  me  so  rapidly  that  when  I  had  made 
several  times  that  amount  I  found  that  I  yet  had  but  little  to  do 
with  and  then  soon  I  found  that  it  was  harder  to  keep  what  I 
had  made  than  it  had  been  to  make  it,  which  has  often  made 
me  think  that  blessed  is  he  who  hath  nothing  for  he  shall  have 
nothing  to  lose. 

The  young  man  of  today  may  not  have  as  many  opportuni- 
ties to  go  forth  and  win  his  way  in  the  world  as  I  had  with  an 
undeveloped  country  before  me,  but  he  has  many  and  better  op- 
portunities, since  all  that  I  and  my  compeers  have  done,  look- 
ing at  it  from  my  standpoint,  has  only  been  to  make  it  possible 
for  others  to  do  and  make  more  rapidly  than  we  did. 

The  man  who  went  and  opened  up  a  home  in  the  wilder- 
ness of  the  West  had  more  to  contend  with  than  he  who  comes 
to  the  developed  West  today.  When  I  think  of  the  men  who 
came  to  Ohio,  Michigan  and  Indiana  with  little  or  no  means 
to  attack  the  great  forests  and  spend  a  life  in  opening  up  a 
farm,  that  man  stands  in  my  estimation  as  being  a  braver  man 
than  he  was  who  faced  an  enemy  on  a  battle-field. 

My  father  sold  a  man  forty  acres  of  land  near-by  where  I 
was  born.  He  had  been  a  good,  faithful  laborer  and  the 
"forty"  was  heavily  timbered.  Davis  bought  him  an  ax  and 
started  out  one  morning  to  slash  a  ten-acre  tract  and  worked 
manfully  for  a  day  or  two,  when  he  came  back  and  rescinded 
the  deal,  saying  that  there  was  an  easier  life  for  him  than  to 


2O6  BUSINESS    INSIGHT. 

spend  it  in  cutting  down  a  forest  and  clearing  it  up  and  wait- 
ing for  years  to  roll  by  before  he  opened  up  a  farm.  That 
man  had  an  idea,  he  carried  it  out,  and  with  only  a  few  dollars 
in  his  pocket  started  to  the  prairies  of  the  West,  where  all  he 
had  to  do  was  to  plow  and  plant  and  without  fencing,  much 
less  clearing  off  the  ground,  grow  a  crop  the  first  year  which 
brought  him  returns.  He  was  a  thinker  and  an  actor  on  first 
principles,  thoughts  and  inspirations. 

After  having  planted  his  twenty  acres  in  corn  he  planted 
it  all  down  in  pumpkins.  His  farm  was  twenty  miles  from 
what  is  now  the  great  city  of  Chicago,  that  was  then  booming 
He  hired  a  team  and  wagon  and  hauled  his  pumpkins  to  mar- 
ket, realizing  enough  therefrom  to  pay  for  the  one  hundred 
and  sixty  acres  that  he  had  bought.  He  sold  his  corn  in  the 
field  and  bought  more  ground,  and  instead  of  planting  it  in 
pumpkins,  as  all  of  his  neighbors  did,  from  seeing  what  he  had 
done,  he  sowed  a  large  proportion  of  it  to  turnips  and  nearly 
an  acre  in  onions.  He  hauled  his  turnips  and  more  than  five 
hundred  bushels  of  onions  off  the  land,  which  sold  at  great 
prices  in  Chicago,  and  with  the  proceeds  bought  more  ground. 
He  sold  the  corn,  as  he  had  done  the  year  before,  in  the  field. 
His  neighbors  who  had  planted  pumpkins  so  glutted  the  market 
that  they  brought  nothing,  and  he  hauled  them  off  their 
ground,  paying  next  to  nothing  for  them,  and  hired  the  people 
to  help  him  turn  their  pumpkins  into  pumpkin  butter,  and  he 
made  another  fortune  out  of  their  misfortune.  The  next  year 
many  of  them  sowed  onions  and  turnips  as  he  had  the  year  be- 
fore. The  turnips  did  well  but  the  onion  crop  failed.  The 
turnips  brought  nothing,  while  this  Mr.  Davis  had  planted  all 
of  his  ground  in  the  castor  oil  beans  and  flax,  both  of  which 
were  a  success  and  sold  at  a  large  price,  which  enabled  him 
to  buy  more  ground,  but  further  west  where  ground  was 
cheaper.  He  was  a  leader;  he  thought  and  never  followed 
other  people. 


BUSINESS   INSIGHT. 

He  finally  went  into  the  hog  business,  and  of  course  his 
neighbors  all  followed  him  as  fast  as  they  could  get  hogs  to 
raise  from,  but  he  always  had  a  superior  and  better  breed  of 
hogs,  which  always  brought  a  superior  and  better  price,  and 
finally  when  he  got  all  the  people  to  raising  hogs  he  went  into 
the  pork  packing  business  and  found  that  still  more  profitable 
than  either  raising  pumpkins,  turnips,  onions  or  hogs  to  sell  to 
his  neighbors  for  breeding  purposes. 

Davis  went  to  California  and  engaged  in  the  gold  wash- 
ing business.  He  soon  found  that  he  could  make  more  money 
selling  the  gold  washers  "horn  spoons,"  and  he  went  into  the 
"horn  spoon"  business,  having  previously  bought  up  all  the 
horns  there  was  in  the  country,  and  in  a  few  years'  time  came 
back  East,  where  he  largely  increased  his  pork  packing  facili- 
ties and  soon  became  a  beef  packer.  Davis  died  a  multi- 
millionaire, leaving  behind  him  a  family  who  had  about  all  of 
their  father's  leading  characteristics  in  their  make-up. 

Now  had  Davis  worked  out  his  original  purpose  of  mak- 
ing a  farm  on  the  forty  acres  of  timber  land  in  Michigan,  he 
never  would  have  contributed  to  this  world's  great  advance- 
ment; he  never  would  have  been  able  to  have  promoted  the 
building  of  railroads  and  the  upbuilding  of  the  country  gen- 
erally. Now  this  man's  name  was  not  Davis,  but  a  rose,  as  all 
know,  would  smell  just  as  sweet  under  another  name. 

My  father  sold  a  forty-acre  tract  to  another  man,  whom 
we  will  call  Jackson,  but  that  was  not  his  name.  Jackson  mar- 
ried and  with  the  aid  of  his  neighbors  and  friends  who  came 
to  his  "log  rollings"  and  "house  raisings"  managed  to  piece  out 
a  living.  He  worked  from  "early  morning  until  dewy  eve" 
and  at  fifty  was  a  broken-down  old  man,  though  he  owned  a 
half  section  of  good  farm  land.  He  died  only  a  few  years 
ago,  leaving  behind  neither  "kith  nor  kin,"  but  a  property 
worth  enough  to  make  three  smart  lawyers  comfortably  well 
off  from  the  litigation  that  distant  relatives  brought  about  try- 


2O8  BUSINESS   INSIGHT. 

ing  to  get  "something  for  nothing."  The  lawyers  did  the 
thinking;  it  was  the  other  fellows  who  did  the  fighting  and 
got  nothing  for  it. 

This  man  was  a  much  abler  and  smarter  man  than  my  so- 
called  Davis  was,  and  the  difference  between  him  and  Davis 
was  in  that  the  latter  improved  on  the  thoughts  of  a  moment 
and  allowed  no  one  to  be  his  monitor  or  director. 

I  knew  another  man,  while  I  was  yet  a  boy  and  had  not 
been  to  P.  T.  Barnum's  show,  referred  to  in  a  previous  chapter, 
whom  I  one  day  met  going  to  my  father's  house  to  borrow 
forty  dollars  to  pay  a  note  due  on  goods  which  he  had  bought, 
who,  not  knowing  me,  asked  the  way  to  our  house.  I  looked 
him  over  and  thought  to  myself,  "Would  I  ever  be  rich  enough 
to  wear  such  fine  store  clothes  and  own  such  a  horse  and  such 
a  buggy  and  wear  a  watch  like  he  did?"  It  was  a  steel  chain 
on  the  outside  that  showed,  worth  now  about  ten  cents  a  yard. 

This  man  had  a  store  in  our  town  and  was  on  his  last  legs. 
He  came  from  somewhere  in  York  State  and  insisted  upon 
stocking  up  his  store  with  goods  that  were  not  in  demand 
among  the  people  in  our  section  at  that  time.  His  stock  of 
ribbon  and  finery  was  greater  than  his  stock  of  substantial  nec- 
essaries. He  went  into  the  insurance  business  and  became 
an  agent  for  the  steamboats  and  the  keel  boats,  and  for  many 
years  had  hard  work  making  ends  or  buckle-and-tongue  meet. 
By  some  accident — for  it  was  not  by  design  on  his  part — he 
was  forced  to  take  a  tract  of  land,  that  was  located  up  in  the 
Upper  Peninsula,  for  a  debt.  It  was  represented  as  being 
good  timber  land,  but  timber  in  those  days  was  not  what  it 
became  in  later  years. 

Wilson  we  will  call  him,  but  that  was  not  his  name,  became 
very  despondent  and  was  considered  a  very  poor  man,  but  he 
and  his  noble  wife  worked  on  and  for  several  years  just  fairly 
lived,  when  in  1853  Russia  got  into  trouble  with  Turkey,  Eng- 
land and  France  and  what  other  powers  I  now  disremember, 


BUSINESS   INSIGHT.  2OQ 

and  the  Crimean  war  was  declared,  and  wheat  went  up  from 
nothing  to  two  dollars  and  twenty-five  cents  per  bushel,  and 
everything  else  in  proportion  (I  refer  back  now  to  a  previous 
chapter),  and  the  copper  mines  of  Lake  Superior  were  being 
worked  with  great  success.  Some  geologist  or  prospector  dis- 
covered iron  ore  east  of  the  copper  mines,  and,  as  Samantha 
Allen  always  said,  "Low  and  behold,"  Wilson's  land  was  the 
keystone  to  the  arch  of  the  iron  ore  region  of  the  Upper  Penin- 
sula. In  three  years'  time  Wilson  was  a  millionaire  and  from 
royalties  on  the  iron  ore  became  a  multi-millionaire  and  died 
one  of  the  wealthiest  men  in  all  the  country  round  about. 

He  was  never  noted  for  anything  good  but  good  luck, 
though  it  was  a  long  time  coming  his  way,  but  it  came  and  it 
stayed,  for  the  Wilson  family  have  all  proved  good  keepers, 
who  understand  that  part  of  the  arithmetic  which  applies  to 
addition  but  not  to  division  or  had  any  suggestion  to  silence. 
Not  like  the  politician  who  was  the  author  of  the  expression, 
"addition,  division  and  silence,"  that  had  reference  to  some- 
thing that  had  to  do  with  my  friend,  Mr.  George  Francis 
Train's  (referred  to  before)  "Credit  Mobilier"  transaction 
that  built  the  Union  Pacific  and  helped  in  at  least  the  Central 
Pacific  Railroad,  which  made  the  first  great  number  of  multi- 
millionaires in  the  United  States. 

Now,  as  to  which  I  or  you  had  rather  be,  Davis,  Jackson 
or  Wilson,  might  be  a  question,  but  as  to  the  one  who  did  the 
greatest  good  and  was  the  greatest  public  benefactor  Wilson 
led  them  all,  though  the  "Credit  Mobilier"  folks  were  world- 
beaters  in  their  way.  I  will  tell  it  in  my  way  so  that  my  read- 
ers will  understand  that  I  am  not  going  to  tell  it  as  it  was,  for 
that  would  be  too  long  a  story. 

These  Mobilier  fellows  got  twenty  sections  of  land  to  the 
mile,  much  of  which  now  cannot  be  bought  for  one  hundred 
dollars  an  acre,  and  forty  thousand  dollars  a  mile  first  mort- 
gage bonds  for  building  a  railroad  that  cost  only  on  an  average 


2IO  BUSINESS   INSIGHT. 

twenty  thousand  dollars  a  mile,  and  there  was  more  than  one 
thousand  miles  of  it  and  there  was  twenty  thousand  dollars 
clear  profit  in  every  mile  they  built  for  the  purpose  of  "di- 
vision" and  the  land  was  all  free  and  paid  for  that  dividended 
up  "incomprehensibly"  to  a  peanut  stand  vender  or  the  poor 
farmer  I  have  before  referred  to. 

I  was  not  fortunate  enough  to  get  into  these  good  rich  deals 
that  were  being  made  in  those  days,  for  I  was  so  unfortunate 
as  to  have  followed  Jeff  Davis  down  South,  and  was  equally 
as  unfortunate  afterward  in  being  fool  enough  to  think  that 
railroad  building  in  Texas,  backed  by  good  subsidies  would  be 
as  profitable  as  it  was  to  those  who  crossed  and  then  checked 
up  the  great  middle  West  and  North  with  them. 

If  I  have  been  fortunate  in  some  few  things  I  have  been 
unfortunate  in  so  many  that  at  times  I  feel  like  a  thirty-cent 
piece  when  I  look  back  and  see  "what  might  have  been." 

I  became  somewhat  notorious  down  in  the  Lone  Star  State 
from  having  taken  a  great  interest  in  legislation  that  was  nec- 
essary to  bring  prosperity  to  my  beloved  land — legislation 
which  looked  toward  the  promotion  of  internal  improvements, 
and  but  for  drouths  and  overflows  and  storms  and  tornadoes 
and  all  else  that  ever  befell  an  unfortunate  man  in  an  unfor- 
tunate country  I  might  have  been  a  gatherer  in  of  the  sheaves. 

I  have  thought  more  of  my  misfortunes  and  disasters  than 
I  have  of  my  successes  because  the  former  left  more  and  larger 
sore  spots  than  the  latter  had  been  able  to  heal  up,  and  now  I 
must  tell  of  one  of  my  most  sore  of  disasters. 

I  had  succeeded  in  accomplishing  that  which  no  other  man 
or  set  of  men  had  been  able  to  accomplish,  and  that  which  all 
those  I  talked  with  thought  was  impossible  of  accomplishing 
with,  by  or  through  the  Texas  Legislature.  The  International 
Railroad  had  built  a  long  line  through  a  desolate  and  no-ac- 
count country  that  commenced  at  nowhere  and  ended  at  ditto. 
It  had  a  great  future  before  it  at  both  ends ;  it  was  one  of  my 


BUSINESS   INSIGHT.  211 

first-born;  it  was  to  have  received  ten  thousand  dollar  thirty- 
year  eight  per  cent  state  bonds  for  each  mile  built,  and  it  was 
contemplated  to  build  about  five  thousand  miles  from  first  to 
last,  for  we  had  provided  for  our  grandchildren  to  have  some- 
thing to  do  on  this  mundane  sphere  after  we  had  quit  doing  for 
them. 

This  long  stretch  of  road  built  through  "nowhere,"  paying 
for  possession  of  course,  in  order  that  we  might  build  at  both 
ends,  we  called  upon  the  State  Controller  for  the  bonds  due  us 
on  the  hundred  and  more  miles  built.  I  might  be  sued  for 
criminal  libel  if  I  were  to  say  that  there  was  any  such  thing 
as '"graft"  with  anybody  down  in  Texas  in  those  days,  for  it 
was  just  after  the  people  had  somewhat  gotten  out  of  the 
clutches  of  the  accursed  carpet-baggers,  nigger  rule  and  seal- 
la  wagers'  control. 

The  bonds  were  printed  and  taken  to  the  Controller  of  the 
State,  who  had  to  certify  to  them,  but  who  instead  all  in  an 
instant  and  without  notice  found  out  that  the  law  was  uncon- 
stitutional and  refused  to  sign  the  bonds.  The  courts  were  ap- 
pealed to,  he  was  served  with  a  mandamus  to  do  so,  and  like 
St.  Paul  he  appealed  to  Caesar,  i.  e.,  the  Supreme  Court,  that 
agreed  with  him.  How  wicked  it  would  be  for  me  or  any  one 
else  to  say  that  there  was  any  "swag"  in  the  matter  at  all,  but 
"alle  samee"  there  was  something  doing  and  our  one  hundred 
and  forty  or  fifty  miles  of  railroad,  built  at  art  enormous 
expense  through  "nowhere,"  was  brought  to  a  standstill  for 
the  want  of  these  bonds,  to  lengthen  it  at  both  ends  so  that  it 
might  reach  "somewhere." 

The  Houston  and  Texas  Central  Railroad,  that  had  been 
built  on  its  own  earnings  for  more  than  one  hundred  and  fifty 
miles  (so  the  people  then  thought  but  found  out  years  after- 
wards it  was  from  robbing  the  State  school  fund,  of  which  I 
shall  tell  hereafter,  and  which  will  make  mighty  interesting 
reading  for  some  people  yet  alive) ,  did  not  approve  of  "division 


212  BUSINESS   INSIGHT. 

and  silence,"  that  is,  dividing  up  their  territory  with  a  Northern 
corporation,  and  I  gave  it  as  my  belief  then  and  now  and  will 
believe  until  my  dying  day,  had  seen  Mr.  Controller  before 
we  did. 

We  had  to  go  to  the  people  and  elect  a  new  Legislature 
and  also  a  new  Governor,  requiring  two  years'  time.  Before 
that  Legislature  met  there  was  lots  of  money  in  the  shape  of 
crisp  new  greenback  bills  floated  all  over  the  State.  No  mat- 
ter who  was  the  author  of  the  scheme.  I  will  be  more  happy 
no  doubt  in  the  hereafter  if  Beelzebub  does  not  recognize  me 
as  having  had  something  to  do  with  it,  for  I  had  rather  be  on 
an  ice  wagon  at  any  time  than  in  his  clutches. 

The  scheme  was  this,  that  all  statesmen  and  politicians  in 
the  State  should  be  educated  to  the  proposition  that  any  man 
or  set  of  men  who  would  come  into  the  State  with  ten  thou- 
sand dollars  would  be  given  one  section  of  Texas  State  lands 
out  on  the  State  plains  "not  otherwise  appropriated;"  for 
every  ten  thousand  dollars  he  invested  in  any  sort  of  internal 
improvements  such  as  iron  furnaces,  copper  smelters,  cotton 
mills,  woolen  mills,  refineries,  and  especially  in  digging  ditches 
for  navigation  or  irrigation  purposes,  and  for  any  and  for 
every  other  purpose  that  could  be  named,  thought  of  or  sug- 
gested. It  was  the  two  last  propositions  that  were  the  draw- 
ing cards  of  the  whole  scheme. 

Besides  the  gift  of  this  land  they  were  to  be  exempt  for 
twenty-five  years  from  taxation  of  any  nature  whatsoever,  cor- 
poration, county  or  State,  and  that  the  land  should  not  be 
taxed  for  twenty-five  years  after  the  State  had  transferred  it 
to  the  individual  or  company  investing  the  money.  Who 
could  go  back  on  such  a  proposition  as  that,  made  as  it  was 
by  some  of  the  best  and  leading  Democrats  in  the  State? 

This  bill  was  duly  introduced  in  the  Legislature  and 
referred  to  the  Committee  on  Internal  Improvements,  but  not 
before  the  bill  was  introduced  praying  for  the  relief  of  the 


BUSINESS   INSIGHT.  2 13 

International  Railroad,  which  was  practically  the  same  bill 
that  had  given  its  charter  and  that  had  been  the  means  of 
inveigling  the  investment  of  many  millions  of  dollars  in  the 
State  to  build  that  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  of  railroad 
from  "nowhere"  through  "nowhere"  to  "nowhere,"  i.  e.,  from 
Longview  to  Hearne. 

This  bill  was  discussed  pro  and  con,  as  was  the  general 
Internal  Improvement  bill,  first  one  and  then  another,  day  in 
and  day  out,  giving  the  "Third  House"  members  an  opportu- 
nity to  get  in  their  good  work  finding  out  the  "lame  ducks" 
and  using  a  liberal  mixture  of  adhesive  plasters  that  were 
always  green  on  the  back  but  expressed  big  value  on  the  face. 
Finally  it  came  to  a  show-down  after  many  resorts  to  "ways 
that  were  dark  and  tricks  that  were  vain."  We  had  two 
majority  in  the-  lower  house  and  one  majority  in  the  upper. 
Old  Beelzebub  won't  charge  up  to  me  all  of  these  tricks,  nor  do 
I  know  very  much  of  them ;  yet  were  I  to  tell  what  I  do  know, 
people  yet  living,  in  self-defense  would  say  all  sorts  of. bad 
things  about  me. 

The  Governor  of  the  State  was  a  man  above  guile.  He 
was  a  lawyer,  a  jurist  of  great  ability,  a  man  who  was  all 
self  and  never  let  a  good  opportunity  pass.  Our  bill  went 
through  and  it  came  to  him  for  his  approval.  A  sly  foxy  cuss 
whispered  in  the  Governor's  ear  how  to  kill  two  birds  with 
one  stone,  hold  himself  with  the  people  by  vetoing  the  Inter- 
national Railroad  bill,  which  would  make  him  O.  K.  with  the 
"grangers,"  and  then  recommend  that  the  Legislature  give  to 
the  International  Railroad  twenty-five  sections  of  land  in  solid 
blocks,  not  alternate  blocks  but  solid  blocks,  and  exempting 
the  land  for  twenty-five  years  from  all  taxation  and  likewise 
exempt  the  railroad  and  its  rolling  stock — mind  you  not  for 
that  part  already  built  but  to  include  future  buildings  as  well— 
for  twenty-five  years  also. 


214  BUSINESS   INSIGHT. 

A  ten-year-old  schoolboy  can  figure  out  the  difference 
between  what  we  got  and  what  we  started  in  to  get  on  the  basis 
of  six  hundred  dollars  per  section  for  the  land  and  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty  dollars  per  year  per  mile  in  taxes  for  the  road 
for  twenty-five  years.  Texas  is  a  great  big  and  rich  State 
and  it  can  afford  to  stand  all  such  losses  as  this  in  the  interest 
of  people  that  it  tried  to>  "repudiate"  and  worse  than  blackmail. 

A  worse  deal  than  this  was  the  Houston  and  Texas  Central 
Railroad  borrowing  from  the  State  of  Texas  four  and  one- 
half  million  dollars  of  United  States  fifty-year  eight  per  cent 
Government  Bonds  that  had  been  given  to  the  State  in  part, 
together  with  all  of  its  lands,  for  a  strip  of  wealthy  country 
in  the  Northwest  that  Texas  had  about  as  much  claim  to  as 
she  had  to  the  Northeast  corner  of  the  Kamchatka  Peninsula, 
and  which  had  been  set  aside  as  a  special  school  fund  labeled 
most  sacredly  and  branded  most  fervently  for  the  benefit  of 
future  born  Texans,  a  school  fund. 

The  railroad  folks  had  a  clause  inserted  allowing  them  to 
pay  off  the  bonds  at  any  time.  The  war  came,  it  charged  one 
hundred  dollars  per  mile  for  transporting  a  Confederate  soldier 
and  twice  that  amount  for  a  horse  and  everything  else  in  like 
proportion,  and  the  reader  must  not  think  that  the  passenger 
and  freight  agents  did  not  know  their  business  then  any 
less  than  they  know  it  now.  Its  earnings  were  immense;  it 
took  several  carloads  of  these  Confederate  promises  to  redeem 
these  bonds.  There  was  onjy  one  party  in  Texas. 

The  question  of  abinitio  and  anti-abinitio  government  was 
not  discussed  in  the  election  first  preceding  the  reconstruction. 
The  Republican  element,  the  carpet-baggers  and  the  scalla- 
wagers  were  on  the  right  side  of  the  question,  and  that  was 
enough  for  the  Democrats,  as  the  former  had  so  disgraced 
themselves  as  to>  make  it  impossible  for  the  people  to  believe 
that  they  would  be  right  in  anything.  The  Democrats  started 
a  friendly  suit  against  the  railroad  for  the  bonds,  and  by  an 


BUSINESS    INSIGHT.  215 

accident  it  was  decided  in  the  Supreme  Court  against  the  rail- 
road, who  appealed  it  to  the  United  States  Supreme  Court, 
where  the  case  was  decided  after  Grover  Cleveland  had 
appointed  a  Democratic  Chief  Justice,  who  of  course  threw 
Texas  down. 


PATRIOTISM  VERSUS  SELF  INTEREST. 


The  greatest  concern  of  an  American  is  the  proper  execu- 
tion of  just  and  proper  laws,  and  the  American  who  takes  no 
interest  in  what  has  passed  and  knows  nothing  of  it  is  not  a 
good  citizen,  cannot  be,  for  it  is  only  by  the  past  that  we  can 
judge  the  future,  and  it  is  for  this  reason  that  I  refer  to  past 
history,  giving  a  truthful  account  as  it  was  and  as  no  politician 
or  bribe  taking  so-called  statesman  would  give  it.  Why  I  so 
often  refer  to  the  past,  my  reader  of  old  and  middle  age  will 
more  appreciate  than  the  young  man,  but  the  time  will  come 
when  he  will  view  it  from  a  different  light. 

Government  was  inaugurated  for  the  good  of  the  weak, 
for  their  protection  against  the  strong.  If  the  Government 
is  corrupt  it  comes  from  the  fact  that  the  people  are  either 
more  or  less  so  or  that  they  are  ignorant  and  can  be  swayed 
to  and  fro,  hither  and  yon,  just  as  the  interest  of  the  party- 
seeking  power  may  demand. 

Elsewhere  I  have  referred  to  the  day  and  date  I  left  my 
birth-place  in  Michigan.  Three  nights  before  that  day,  in 
company  with  several  other  neighbor  boys,  Who  were  visiting 
around  with  me  and  my  brother,  I  went  to  a  "free  nigger 
lecture"  at  a  log  schoolhouse  which  stands  where  Galien, 
Michigan,  now  stands.  It  was  then  a  wilderness  of  a  forest 
thereabout.  There  were  perhaps  as  many  as  fifty  grown  people 
there  and  as  many  more  boys  like  ourselves.  The  white- 
headed  and  white-bearded  negro  came  in,  a  personification  of 
the  "old  blind  Joe"  of  today.  He  went  direct  to  business  and 
I  never  have  forgotten  the  first  two  lines  of  the  song  he  sang : 

"I  am  bound  for  Canada,  that  cold  and  barren  land; 
The  horrors  of  slavery  I  can  no  longer  stand." 
216 


PATRIOTISM  VERSUS  SELF  INTEREST.         217 

This  affected  me,  for  we  were  going  away  from  the  North 
to  a  Southern  country  to  get  away  from  cold  lands,  and  the 
nigger  was  headed  in  another  direction.  His  song  was  full 
of  pathos  and  recounted  of  how  his  wife  and  children  had 
been  sold  in  slavery,  and  then  in  his  lecture  he  set  forth  how 
they  belonged  to  a  good  humane  master  who  would  sell  them 
for  a  given  price,  and  he  was  lecturing  to  get  money  to  buy 
them.  I  was  a  capitalist  at  that  time,  having  several  dollars 
but  more  copper  cents.  That  was  the  first  and  the  only  time 
in  my  life  that  I  invested  in  even  a  small  part  of  a  nigger,  and 
I  believe  that  I  gave  as  much  money  as  any  other  person  pres- 
ent. Just  as  the  lecture  was  being  concluded  a  band  of  what 
would  be  called  Ku  Klux  in  those  days,  from  the  pro-slavery 
neighborhood  where  I  had  lived,  rushed  in,  but  old  Uncle  Ned 
escaped  unhurt. 

At  any  time  five  years  before  the  Committee  of  Public 
Safety  of  Fort  Bend  County  burned  my  Harper's  Magazine 
and  Dabney's  Southern  Botany  and  gave  me  notice  to  quit, 
as  related  elsewhere,  a  piece  of  Horace  Greeley's  New  York 
Tribune  as  big  as  my  hand  found  in  my  store  or  in  my  pos- 
session would  have  hung  me.  To  have  found  a  copy  of  Uncle 
Tom's  Cabin  in  any  man's  possession  would  have  hung  him 
without  the  benefit  of  bell,  book  or  Bible,  for  any  man  to  have 
taken  out  of  the  postoffice  or  even  for  any  postmaster  to  have 
delivered  to  any  man  a  Congressional  document  bearing  the 
name  of  any  Republican  Congressman  or  United  States  Sena- 
tor would  have  hung  that  postmaster  as  well  as  the  man. 

The  Committee  of  Public  Safety  opened  letters,  as  they 
did  in  the  case  of  Hughes  and  Parker,  related  in  a  former 
chapter,  and  evil  befell  the  man  whose  mother,  sister,  sweet- 
heart or  wife  wrote  intimating  that  they  were  not  pro-slavery- 
ites. 

This  man  Horace  Greeley,  of  whom  all  have  heard,  was  the 
father  of  the  Abolition  party,  and  no  man  was  looked  upon 


2l8  PATRIOTISM    VERSUS   SELF   INTEREST. 

with  as  much  hatred  as  he  was  by  the  people  of  the  South. 
To  have  intimated  that  there  was  any  honor  or  good  in  Horace 
Greeley  would  have  quickly  ended  the  intimator's  life.  To 
have  told  a  man  that  in  less  than  ten  years  the  Democrats  of 
the  South,  the  old  original  secessionists,  would  be  shouting 
themselves  hoarse  and  running  themselves  lame  huzzaing  for 
Horace  Greeley  and  carrying  a  black  Republican  banner 
would  have  cost  the  life  of  any  one. 

I  was  appointed  a  delegate  to  the  Crittenden  Peace  Con- 
vention, that  had  been  called  by  the  Union  people  of  the  South 
to  meet  at  Chattanooga,  Tennessee,  and  we  met  in  Governor 
Sam  Houston's  office  in  Austin,  where  we  received  a  telegram 
from  Alexander  H.  Stephens,  Senator  from  Georgia,  after- 
wards Vice-President  of  the  Confederacy  through  the  grace 
of  Jeff.  Davis,  that  Horace  Greeley's  Tribune  of  recent  date 
editorially — double-leaded  leader — stated  that  it  was  a  well 
settled  fact,  or  words  to  that  effect,  that  there  was  no  coercive 
power  in  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  by  which  the 
North  could  coerce  the  Southern  States  back  into  the  Union 
after  they  had  seceded,  etc.,  etc. 

There  were  twenty-two  delegates  present.  It  was  left  to 
the  youngest,  and  that  was  I,  to  vote  first  as  to  whether,  in 
view  of  this  statement,  we  should  go  with  the  South  or  still 
hold  on  to  the  Union,  and  these  were  my  reasons  for  casting 
my  vote  to  go  with  the  South  and  which  were  accepted  by 
two-thirds  of  those  present. 

That  Horace  Greeley  was  the  originator  and  father  of  the 
black  Republican  party,  that  he  made  Abraham  Lincoln  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States,  that  he  had  made  the  Republican 
platform,  that  he  had  defeated  William  H.  Seward  in  his  own 
State  by  the  nomination  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  that  Abraham 
Lincoln  was  but  clay  in  the  potter's  hands,  that  Horace  Greeley 
could  not  possibly  say  this  but  that  a  council  of  the  black 
Republican  party  leaders  had  authorized  him  to  say  it ;  that  in 


PATRIOTISM    VERSUS    SELF    INTEREST.  219 

saying  this  he  was  oniy  saying  and  affirming  what  all  the 
Democrats  and  secessionists  of  the  South  had  been  declaring 
over  and  over  again,  and  this  being  the  case  there  would  be  no 
war,  that  all  would  be  peaceably  adjusted,  and  that  in  time, 
as  Horace  Greeley  suggested,  when  we  got  tired  of  being  out, 
we  could  come  back  into  the  Union,  and  further  than  this  I 
was  a  peace  man  and  would  always  be  found  arrayed  on  the 
side  of  the  peace-maker. 

With  these  sentiments,  as  before  said,  two-thirds  of  the 
Committee  agreed.  Little  did  I  or  any  one  else  in  that  room 
know  that  Horace  Greeley,  like  James  Gordon  Bennett  of  the 
Herald,  was  a  commercial  editor  who,  for  so  much  per  line  of 
eight  words  agate  measure,  would  say  anything  and  promise 
anything  for  any  party  who  had  the  price.  I  was  afterwards 
told,  and  as  I  firmly  believe  was  true,  and  no  man  had  ever 
yet  undertaken  to  deny,  nay,  not  even  Sidell  or  Davis  ever 
dared  deny,  that  eighty-five  thousand  dollars  in  the  Bank  of 
England  notes  was  paid  for  this  one  editorial  leader  and  that 
the  covenant  was  that  he  should  never  again  be  called  upon  to 
defend  it  in  any  way,  and  he  did  not. 

This  editorial  was  the  cause  of  the  formation  of  the  Hueff 
regiment  of  Texas  cavalry,  composed  of  the  members  of  the 
Public  Safety  Committee  from  different  parts  of  the  State, 
and  who  hung  and  otherwise  murdered  and  assassinated  more 
than  one  hundred  and  twenty  Union  men  who  were  leaving 
the  State  inside  of  the  prescribed  time  given  them  to  leave  by 
the  Governor's  proclamation. 

This  man  Horace  Greeley  (whose  name  did  I  have  the 
power  I  would  make  it  a  penitentiary  offense  for  any  one  to 
mention  except  in  derision  and  contempt)  went  right  on  advo- 
cating in  his  paper  all  sorts  of  prescriptive  measures  looking 
to  the  conquering  of  the  South,  and  no  other  paper  published 
in  the  North  had  one-tenth  the  power  that  his  paper  had  in 
this  direction. 


22O         PATRIOTISM  VERSUS  SELF  INTEREST. 

There  live  but  two  men  today,  1904,  who  could  tell  of  the 
amount  of  Confederate  cotton  money,  estimated  at  from  eigh- 
teen to  twenty-four  million  dollars,  that  was  over  in  England 
and  that  the  agents  of  the  Government  "fobbed"  (or  stole,  is  a 
better  word),  and  what  amount  was  paid  over  to  Horace 
Greeley  to  secure  the  bail  bonds  of  Jeff.  Davis  and  to  release 
from  prison  four  other  noted  Confederates,  among  them  ex- 
Postmaster  General  Regan,  who  was  confined  in  Fort  Warren, 
and  who  from  writing  there  to  his  friends  in  Texas  to  accept 
negro  emancipation  as  a  finality  and  furthermore  be  prepared 
for  their  enfranchisement — and  this  too  after  all  Confederates 
had  been  paroled  and  taken  the  oath  of  allegiance — was  burned 
in  effigy  in  all  parts  of  the  State,  and  none  was  so  brave  as  to 
do  him  honor  for  telling  the  trutK 

This  Horace  Greeley  kept  on  publishing  in  his  Tribune 
the  most  vile,  slanderous  articles  on  the  people  of  the  South, 
against  their  honor,  and  against  their  liberties,  though  he 
secured  the  bail  bonds  for  Jeff.  Davis,  and  I  have  challenged 
in  my  day  any  man  to  show  that  any  reader  of  the  one  hun- 
dred and  twenty-five  thousand  circulation  of  the  New  York 
Tribune  in  the  Northern  States  ever  read  in  that  paper  that 
Horace  Greeley  had  admitted  the  right  of  the  South  to  secede, 
much  less  that  he  had  secured  the  bail  bonds  of  Jeff.  Davis. 

For  doing  these  two  things  the  leaders  of  the  Southern 
Democracy  took  him  up  and  nominated  him,  as  the  champion 
Democrat,  for  President  of  the  United  States  and  made  the 
solid  South  support  him;  and  yet  there  live  men  who  say  there 
is  honor  and  principle  and  nobleness  in  the  Southern  Demo- 
cratic leaders. 

Old  Horace  Greeley  died  a  poor  man,  as  he  justly  should. 
I  believe  God  intends  all  two-faced  men  like  him  must  live  on 
poor  pickings  on  the  other  side  and  in  cahoots  and  companion- 
ship with  such  men  as  made  the  Southern  Public  Safety  Com- 
mittees and  managed  the  affairs  of  that  Government.  Old 


PATRIOTISM    VERSUS   SELF   INTEREST.  221 

Greeley  was  a  very  profane  man.  It  was  said  that  he  could 
write  a  captivating  abolition  article  and  swear  like  a  fish- 
monger at  the  same  time.  When  he  died  W.  R.,  his  right  hand 
"con  man,"  was  present,  and  while  gasping  his  last  breath,  he 
had  a  very  pointed  talk  with  the  old  devil,  stating  that  "I  will 
be  with  you  down  in  hell  soon,  and  I'll  give  you  the  run  of 
your  life  for  the  next  election  for  master-in-chief  of  the  fiery 
regions."  And  while  having  this  talk  with  old  Beelzebub, 
Greeley's  life  went  out. 

One  of  his  family  was  out  West  and  telegraphed  back  to 
W.  R.  to  know  what  "father's  last  words  were." 

His  reply  was,  "I  know  that  my  Redeemer  liveth." 

There  may  be  many  people  in  the  United  States,  even  at 
this  late  date,  who  think  .that  Horace  Greeley  was  a  great, 
good  and  honest  man,  but  these  people  should  not  be  allowed 
the  right  to  vote.  According  to  my  idea  there  should  be  a 
mental  qualification  for  any  one  to  become  a  citizen  and  enjoy 
this  great  privilege  of  voting  at  our  elections. 

When  I  was  a  boy  my  father  was  a  subscriber  to"  the 
National  Intelligencer,  published  in  Washington  by  Gales  and 
Seaton,  a  paper  that  was  as  far  above  guile  and  deceit, 
hypocrisy  and  wrong,  as  the  sun's  light  is  above  that  made  by 
a  tallow  dip.  He  also  was  a  subscriber  to  the  New  York 
Express,  a  staunch  old  line  Whig  paper  that  believed  in  preach- 
ing and  taught  protection  for  everything  that  was  of  American 
birth  or  make,  to  which  of  course  the  party  that  was  "ferninst" 
the  Government  opposed. 

An  Irishman  landing  in  New  York  fresh  from  the  old  sod 
was  asked  by  another  lately  therefrom : 

"Pat,  and  what  party  are  you  going  to  belong  to?" 

"Which  party  is  ferninst  the  Government?" 

"1  "he  Democratic  party." 

"Well,  thin,  I'll  be  a  Dimocrat." 

The  South  is  solid  for  the  same  reason  that  at  a  time  in 


222  PATRIOTISM    VERSUS   SELF   INTEREST. 

the  past  the  Catholic  Church  ruled  the  world,  and,  as  with  it, 
there  is  coming  a  time  when  there  will  be  a  break  up  of  the 
solid  South,  and  then  there  will  be  a  day  of  prosperity  and 
happiness  there. 

When  such  men  as  Bailey  and  Hogg  of  Texas  car  be 
pushed  forward  and  pointed  to  as  ideal  men  and  good  presi- 
dential timber,  old-timers  like  myself  look  back  and  then  think 
how  most  all  things  are  possible  with  the  devil,  as  we  are  told 
all  things  are  possible  with  God. 

The  establishing  of  civic  federations  in  the  South,  referred 
to  elsewhere,  in  which  no  ignorant  man  or  politician  can  gain 
admittance,  composed  of  men  who  pay  taxes  and  are  the  cap- 
tains of  industry  in  their  localities,  men  who  live  for  those 
who  come  after  them,  as  do  all  great  and  good  men,  will  soon 
bring  about  a  reaction  in  the  political  affairs  of  the  South  that 
may  or  may  not  benefit  the  poor  white  trash  or  the  nigger 
element. 

An  old  friend  to  whom  I  had  been  telling  o>f  the  rascallity, 
trickery  and  deceit  of  the  politicians  in  the  city  in  which  I 
lived,  declared  that  the  time  was  fast  coming  when  this  anarchy 
element  would  rise  and  destroy  all  that  was  esteemed  as  val- 
uable, good  and  great  by  good  people.  He  seemed  to  be  very 
much  quieted  when  I  told  him  that  he  was  wrong,  for  with 
the  money  in  my  hand  I  could  hire  the  crowd  in  this  saloon 
to  go  fight  and  annihilate  the  crowd  in  the  other  saloon ;  that 
money  talks,  and,  when  controlled  by  brain  and  power,  will 
always,  and  there  need  be  no  fears  or  doubts. 

The  day  of  blind  prejudice,  ignorant  superstition  and  false 
preaching  has  passed,  and  its  first  knell  was  sounded  when  this 
great  Government  of  ours  was  inaugurated  by  as  brave  a  set 
of  grand  and  noble  men  as  God  ever  convened  in  noble  assem- 
bly. It  was  the  Declaration  of  Independence  of  the  United 
States  that  was  the  first  knell  of  the  bell  that  since  sounded 
around  the  world,  and  the  man  of  intelligence,  the  man  who 


PATRIOTISM    VERSUS   SELF   INTEREST.  223 

had  contributed  to  the  great  prosperity  of  this  country  in  the 
last  fifty  years,  sees  with  glory  in  his  soul  the  coming  yet  of  a 
still  brighter  day. 

I  hope  that  no*  man  will  read  my  book  that  would  ask 
here  for  me  to  say  or  point  out  where  these  great  shocks  of 
golden  sheaves  are  to  be  seen,  for  such  a  person  would  not 
have  sense  enough  to  determine  the  difference  in  point  of  good- 
ness between  the  rot-gut  grog  that  he  has  been  accustomed  to 
drink  and  the  good  old-fashioned  apple  jack  or  hand-made 
sour  mash  that  the  founders  of  this  Government  drank  in  their 
day. 

I  have  frequently  had  occasion  for  the  good  of  the  com- 
munity in  which  I  live  to  break  into  politics,  but  never  from  a 
party  line,  and  I  never  would  in  my  life  take  up  the  cause  of  a 
man  who  had  been  a  traitor  to  any  cause,  wherefore  I  opposed 
the  Horace  Greeley  scheme  of  Southern  disgrace  and  became 
very  much  disliked  for  so  doing.  I  have  since  that  day  and 
time  talked  with  intelligent  people  of  the  North  on  this  sub- 
ject, and  never  have  I  known  a  man  who  had  ever  seen  the 
article  in  Greeley's  paper  as  to  there  being  no  coercive  power 
in  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 

One  dark  and  dismal  night,  by  previous  appointment,  near 
Natchez,  Mississippi,  in  obedience  to  orders  from  the  Govern- 
ment, after  having  concealed  my  body  guard  of  six  fighting 
machines  in  the  persons  of  as  many  Texas  Ranger  friends 
that  I  could  depend  upon,  even  risk  my  life  in  the  hands  of, 
I  submitted  to  an  interview  of  several  hours'  duration  with 
one  of,  if  not  the  chief  of  the  Secret  Service  of  the  United 
States  Government,  and  there  was  no  one  but  he  and  I  any- 
where near,  as  he  supposed.  I  was  no  more  discreet  then  than 
he,  for,  like  myself,  he  came  prepared  for  a  melee  in  case  of  an 
attempted  abduction  or  kidnaping. 

No  more  than  I  would  violate  my  most  solemn  tie  and 
obligation  would  I  tell  of  the  interview  that  we  had,  a  correct 


224  PATRIOTISM    VERSUS    SELF    INTEREST. 

report  of  which  I  gave  to  my  chief  in  Richmond.  The  matter 
relating  to  and  of  concern  in  this  interview  could  have  much 
better  been  attended  to  and  conducted  somewhere  on  the 
Potomac.  Why  it  should  have  been  'way  out  West,  and  why  I 
should  have  been  selected  to  be  the  party  to  conduct  it,  I  never 
could  understand  and  would  not  question  the  party  I  met,  on 
that  score. 

Ever  after  this  I  felt  that  my  life  was  in  danger,  and  I 
was  warned  on  two  occasions,  both  of  which  compelled  me  to 
disobey  orders  from  the  Government.  I  would  not  be  writing 
this  book  today  had  I  obeyed  either  one  of  these  orders.  I 
am  not  such  a  coward  and  poltroon  as  to  send  a  substitute, 
nor  was  I  ever  questioned  as  to  why  I  disobeyed  the  orders 
emanating  from  the  office  of  the  Secretary  of  Wat  but  not 
signed  by  the  Secretary  of  War.  The  Secret  Service  of  the 
Government  in  those  days  was  conducted  on  quite  a  different 
plan  or  line  from  what  it  is  now  between  any  Government; 
now  such  work  is  done  by  properly  paid  attorneys  or  by  detec- 
tive associations. 

The  nearest  I  ever  got  to  the  truth  of  this  secret  mission  on 
which  I  was  sent  was  several  years  afterwards.  I  was  in  Wash- 
ington, D.  C.,  when  a  gentleman  called  on  me  at  my  hotel 
and  wanted  to  know  if  I  was  not  at  one  time  in  the  employ 
of  the  Confederacy  in  the  Signal  and  Secret  Service.  I  lied 
out  of  it,  and  asked,  "Why  do  you  ask?" 

He  said  that  his  memory  told  him  that  I  was  the  man  who 
had  met  another  man  that  he  was  greatly  interested  in  near  the 
bank  of  the  Mississippi  River  above  Natchez  in  the  "dark  of 
the  moon."  I  told  him  that  it  was  very  possible  that  if  he 
persevered  in  his  proposition  that  his  false  conception  of  faces 
might  bring  him  in  great  trouble,  and  to  the  demand  that  I 
made  upon  him  as  to  who  he  was,  he  replied : 

"It  is  none  of  your  business  since  you  are  not  the  party  that 
I  am  hunting  for." 


PATRIOTISM    VERSUS   SELF   INTEREST.  225 

I  told  him  that  there  was  such  a  mystery  that  I  would  like 
information,  that  it  was  interesting  to  me.  I  spent  some 
money  "shadowing"  this  man,  but  the  detective  who  did  the 
work  for  me  and  who  followed  him  "turned  turtle"  and  could 
give  me  no  report,  by  this  I  mean  he  sold  out  to  the  other 
fellow,  who  was  backed  by  much  more  money  than  I  could 
command,  if  not  by  some  arm  of  the  Government  Service  of 
the  United  States,  or  once  was. 

From  my  earliest  infancy,  when  I  was  put  to  bed  early, 
and  from  thence  on  all  through  life  I  retire  to  my  apartment 
seldom  later  than  eight  P.  M.,  and  it  is  possible  that  there  is 
not  a  man  living  today  of  my  age  and  travel  and  experience 
who  has  seen  as  little  of  this  world  by  gaslight  or  any  other 
sort  of  light  by  night  as  I  have  seen.  I  have,  however,  been 
inveigled  into  "gun  dances,"  which  for  the  edification  of  my 
reader  I  will  explain. 

An  urgent  call  came  to  me  one  evening  to  the  room  of  a 
hotel  where  I  was  stopping,  near  by  where,  as  I  supposed,  I 
had  a  millionaire's  interest  in  a  hole  in  the  ground  called  a 
mine.  Feeling  good  and  apprehending  no  danger  I  told  the 
messenger  that  I  would  join  them  in  a  few  minutes.  When 
I  did  so,  in  a  side  room  between  the  office  of  the  hotel  and  the 
bar-room,  three  highwaymen  leveled  their  six-shooters  at  my 
head  and  told  me  to  drink  from  the  bottle  of  whisky  sitting 
on  the  table  and  to  drink  with  them.  This  was  a  time  when 
the  thoughts  of  a  moment  are  worth  a  life  of  toil,  to  which  I 
have  previously  referred,  and  my  wits  were  with  me.  Bowing 
I  said : 

"Surely,  gentlemen,  after  you." 

They  drank  first,  and  I  drank  with  them,  and  looking  at 
them  I  said :  "Now,  gentlemen,  are  you  satisfied  ?" 

The  majority  were;  one  wanted  more  fun,  but  the  majority 
prevailed,  and  I  never  have  been  caught  napping  again — that 
was  the  first  time  in  my  life. 


226  PATRIOTISM    VERSUS    SELF    INTEREST. 

Some  years  ago,  from  having  participated  in  the  organiza- 
tion of  the  Patriotic  Sons  of  America  in  the  City  of  Chicago, 
I  was  prevailed  upon  to  accept  their  nomination  for  the  Legis- 
lature on  the  little  "Red  Schoolhouse"  proposition.  I  lived  in 
a  strong  Republican  district  of  the  strongest  Republican  ward 
in  the  City  of  Chicago.  The  sons  of  the  Emerald  Isle,  who 
were  very  numerous  in  the  lower  part  of  my  district — all 
Democrats — sought  to  make  capital  by  having  a  "fracas"  at 
my  expense,  and  having  heard  that  I  was,  a  stranger  to  fear, 
sent  me  a  challenge  to  speak  in  a  noted  public  hall,  the  rent  of 
which  they  would  pay  if  I  would  come  there  and  make  one  of 
my  "know-nothing"  speeches. 

The  idea  of  my  being  backed  out  never  entered  my  head, 
and  I  knew  that  I  knew  Irish  character  well  enough  to  accept 
the  challenge — it  was  no  invitation  but  a  right  down  defi. 
The  Chief  of  Police  happened  to  be  an  American  and  a  per- 
sonal friend  of  mine,  but  this  was  not  known  to  all  people. 
I  accepted  the  challenge  and  had  the  Chief-  of  Police  send 
fifteen  or  more  "all-arownders"  in  citizens'  clothes,  in  other 
words  a  lot  of  picked  policemen,  who  were  the  first  to  get  into 
the  hall  and  the  nearest  to  the  platform.  At  an  early  hour  the 
hall  was  packed,  and  not  with  voters  alone,  for  Bridget  and 
Mollie  and  Mary  and  all  of  the  others  of  that  gender  or  sex 
who  loved  fracases  were  there  also.  Of  course,  Mike,  late 
from  the  "Old  Sod,"  and  all  of  his  "hairy  teeth"  companions 
were. well  up  in  the  front,  and  though  I  had  a  silk  hat,  I  did 
not  wear  it  that  night. 

I  shoved  and  pushed  and  worked  my  way  through  the 
densely  packed  crowd  of  Irish  humanity,  and  crawled  up  as 
best  I  could  on  the  platform,  where  there  was  no  one  to  intro- 
duce me  to  the  assemblage.  I  never  was  a  good  copyist,  never 
could  tell  a  thing  twice  alike,  therefore  I  will  not  vouch  for 
the  following  words  as  being  the  ones  I  said,  but  they  came 
the  next  thing  to  it.  After  walking  across  the  platform  a  time 


PATRIOTISM    VERSUS    SELF    INTEREST.  22? 

or  two,  apparently  to  collect  my  thoughts,  I  went  to  the  front 
of  the  platform,  took  off  my  hat  and  made  the  most  profound 
bow  of  which  I  was  capable  and  said : 

"Fellow  Citizens,  Gentlemen  and  Ladies :  I  recognize  the 
faces  before  me  as  being  largely  from  the  'Old  Sod.'  I  want 
you  to  look  at  me  in  the  face*  and  in  my  eyes,  look  at  irijy 
tongue  and  see  if  it  is  forked  [extending  my  licker  as  far  out 
as  possible]  and  [drawing  myself  up  with  as  much  force  as  I 
could]  see  if  any  of  you  would  take  me  to  be  a  coward  or 
spalpeen,  as  you  term  them.  Now  give  me  five  minutes  to  talk 
to  you  and  then  if  you  do  not  prove  my  friends  I  will  submit 
myself  to  be  quartered  and  drawn. 

"There  is  but  one  thing  in  the  character  of  an  Irish  man 
or  woman  that  I  do  hate,  and  now  listen  to  me  while  I  tell  you 
what  that  one  thing  is.  I  am  the  grandson  oi  one  of  the 
founders  of  this  great  nation,  whose  liberty  you  enjoy,  and  the 
thing  above  all  things  and  the  only  thing  I  hate  an  Irishman 
for  is  that  he  does  not  hate  the  Englishman  enough  to  suit  me." 

In  an  instant  the  house  was  in  an  uproar  and  such  yelling  I 
never  heard  come  from  the  throats  of  three  or  four  thousand 
Irish  men  and  women.  A  thousand  hands  rushed  up  towards 
me  and  voices  shouted,  "Good  boy,  he!"  When  the  noise  had 
subsided  the  balance  of  my  remarks  were  somewhat  on  this 
line;  they  were  short: 

"You  would  never  have  become  the  good  citizens  of  this' 
country  that  the  majority  of  you  are,  did  you  not  love  above  all 
things  on  the  earth,  saving  the  love  of  a  mother  and  the  reli- 
gion you  embrace,  the  sod  and  soil  and  land  your  eyes  first  saw 
after  birth,  and  no  Irishman  worthy  the  name  and  honor  of  that 
race  should  be  tolerated  on  this  land  who  would  allow  living 
mortal  to  say  aught  against  the  Green  Isle!" 

This  brought  the  house  in  another  uproar,  and  I  had  in 
walking  across  the  platform  found  the  secret  exit,  which  I 
took  in  double-quick. 


228  PATRIOTISM    VERSUS   SELF    INTEREST. 

There  were  two  English  Orangemen  organizations  or 
lodges  in  my  district  and  their  voting  strength  was  two  hun- 
dred and  eighty.  I  was  defeated  for  the  Legislature  by  thirty- 
six  votes.  I  do  not  know  that  an  Irishman  voted  for  me,  but 
I  do  know  that  there  was  not  an  Englishman  in  the  district 
but  who  peddled  tickets  against  me. 

A  few  days  after  the  election  I  received  an  invitation,  all 
properly  engrossed,  as  an  unsuspicious  person  would  naturally 
suppose,  from  one  of  these  Orangemen  Lodges,  inviting  me 
to  meet  them  at  a  certain  point  'way  out  on  Blue  Island  ave- 
nue. I  read  it  over,  and  it  occurred  to  me  that  I  did  not 
want  to  be  there.  I  had  previously  taken  a  great  interest  in 
the  prosecution  of  the  Dr.  Cronin  murderers,  for  which  no 
few  of  the  Clan-na-gael  members  held  daggers  up  their  sleeves 
for  me.  Armed  and  with  six  very  substantial  friends  I  was 
near  about  where  the  supposed  meeting  was  to  take  place  and 
with  us  were  two  newspaper  reporters. 

We  watched  from  a  secreted  spot  the  men  who  came  in  and 
went  out  and  counted  their  number.  It  was  just  about  such 
another  lonely  spot  as  where  Dr.  Cronin  had  been  murdered. 
We  waited  and  watched  and  saw  the  crowd  disperse  in  time 
for  the  reporters  to  fill  the  next  morning's  big  daily  papers 
with  several  columns  of  scare  matter  under  big  scare  headlines 
and  I  was  again  made  notorious  and  in  a  way  that  I  did  not 
much  like. 

That  I  have  always  had  a  guardian  angel  who  has  pro- 
tected me  from  wrong  and  harm  is  not  more  true  than  that  I 
have  been  conscious  for  these  many  years  that  a  dark  shadow 
has  at  times  got  very  near  to  me.  Eternal  vigilance  has  been 
no  more  the  price  of  liberty  than  it  has  been  my  salvation. 

I  could  fill  several  more  pages  of  my  book  telling  of  simi- 
lar encounters  but  will  close  with  but  one  more. 

I  had  a  difficulty  with  a  man  down  in  the  Lone  Star 


PATRIOTISM    VERSUS    SELF    INTEREST.  22Q 

who  at  short  range  emptied  his  revolver  at  me  and  was  then 
coming  with  a  "tooth  pick,"  thinking  that  I  was  unarmed. 
That  was  his  mistake.  He  quickly  learned  better  and  has 
been  a  much  better  man  ever  since.  I  was  taught  early  in  life 
that  it  was  only  the  good  Indians  that  were  dead. 


THE  MEANING  OF  SUCCESS. 

Often  we  meet  people  who,  judging  from  their  actions, 
imagine  they  are  something  above  the  ordinary.  No  one  has 
ever  yet  seen  the  man  or  the  woman  who  uses  the  looking- 
glass  much  but  that  he  sees  a  fool,  made  so  from  the  poisoning 
of  his  brain  through  self-conceit.  When  persons  become  more 
familiar  with  and  accustomed  to  their  own  faces  and  looks 
than  with  those  of  others,  the'y  become  conceited  and  vain 
and  foppish  and  grow  into  dudes  and  dudeens.  When  doubt 
sets  in  wisdom  commences,  but  the  self-conceited  Jack  never 
has  doubts  as  to  his  being  the  most  beautiful,  and  therefore 
the  wisest,  of  all  men  of  his  acquaintance,  and  it  is  only  from 
the  world's  not  knowing  him  that  it  fails  to  esteem  him  as 
such. 

We  come  across  these  people  at  every  turn  in  life.  They 
are  the  weasels  in  the  barnyard  that  give  the  man  of  affairs 
so  much  trouble.  In  my  day  and  time  I  have  given  employ- 
ment to  a  great  number  of  people,  and  I  have  done  my  part 
in  the  way  of  educating  and  fitting  a  great  number  of  young 
people  for  business  and  proper  lives,  and  I  have  never  yet 
given  employment  to  a  man  or  woman  who  kept  a  looking- 
glass  in  front  of  them  all  the  while,  and  who  are  constantly 
fixing  their  collars  and  primping,  or  who  spend  more  time 
in  twisting  their  mustaches  and  pompadours  than  would  be 
required  to  educate  a  baboon,  but  that  I  was  left  in  some 
way,  and  as  I  trusted  such  I  was  left  badly. 

It  is  the  plain,  everyday,  meet-him-every-time-always-the- 
same  man  that  this  world  loves  the  most  and  rewards  the 
greatest.  The  actor  and  the  dissembler  to  me  proves  the  one 
who  is  self  in  nothing  but  all  deceit,  who  is  the  curse  of  this 

230 


THE    MEANING   OF    SUCCESS.  23! 

earth  and  makes  the  bountiful  soil  grow  with  thistles  and 
thorns.  ''All  the  world  loves  a  lover,"  and  it  also  loves  a 
fighter,  but  not  a  lover  of  self  nor  a  fighter  who  attains  pro- 
ficiency in  deceit. 

The  more  one  sees  of  the  world  and  mankind  in  it,  and 
the  more  mankind  hears  of  the  deceit,  the  more  he  is  prone 
to  think  of  dogs,  and  from  so  thinking  the  best  of  all  great 
people  become  recluses  and  draw  in  unto  themselves  and  away 
from  the  world.  "Disappointment  maketh  the  heart  sick," 
and  from  what  deceives  and  disappoints  in  our  fellow  men 
the  best  of  us  become  tired  and  want  to  travel,  and  if,  when 
we  shall  have  traveled  to  that  bourne  from  which  no  traveler 
e'er  returns,  we  find  there  in  the  shady  nooks  on  the  banks 
of  the  babbling  brooks  the  same  that  has  made  this  earth  so 
tiresome  to  us,  then  there  is  no  truth  in  the  Holy  Writ,  and 
not  until  then  shall  we  be  prepared  to  say  that  "Life  was  not 
worth  living." 

Three  men  were  traveling  on  the  top  of  an  open  stage 
coach.  One  was  admiring  the  grandeur  of  the  scenery  and 
the  magnificence  of  the  great  forest  through  which  they  were 
passing,  and  the  country  viewed  from  the  mountain  peaks 
over  which  they  were  traveling.  The  other  had  nothing  to 
say.  The  third,  a  Yankee,  declared  that  he  believed  that  it 
was  worth  twenty-four  cords  to  the  acre.  To  the  admirer 
of  the  beautiful  in  nature  all  things  are  added.  A  contented 
mind  is  a  continual  feast.  The  selfish  calculator  has  nothing 
added  unto  him  except  as  it  comes  by  his  own  hard  licks. 

The  native  of  a  beautiful  country  with  beautiful  surround- 
ings has  little  appreciation  of  them  until  he  shall  have  been 
cast  away  upon  a  desert  land,  and  possibly  it  never  comes  to 
him  until  it  is  too  late  to  enjoy  them.  We  "never  miss  the 
wa,ter  till  the  well  runs  dry,"  and  the  water  that  has  .passed 
the  wheel  grinds  no  more  corn,  and  as  an  illustration  of  the 
effect  of  our  coming  into  this  world,  as  well  as  our  going 


234  THE    MEANING    OF    SUCCESS. 

The  mountain  was  there,  the  mine  was  there,  the  wealth 
was  there  and  the  water  was  there  and  the  vast  plain  at  the 
foot  of  the  mountain  more  than  two  thousand  feet  below  the 
first  workings  of  the  mine  was  there,  but  it  was  fourteen  miles 
away,  and  to  have  built  a  tunnel  that  would  have  tapped  the 
vein  to  the  depth  that  was  illustrated  in  the  map  shown  us 
would  have  cost  twice  more  than  all  the  money  that  had  ever 
been  taken  out  of  the  Luntz  lode,  first  discovered  by  some  of 
Cortez'  men  in  1462. 

I  could  have  sold  my  interest  in  this  enterprise  after  I  had 
gone  and  made  the  investigation  to  others  interested  in  it  with 
me  on  the  strength  of  the  report  that  was  made  in  1859  for  a 
price  that  would  have  made  me  a  well-to-do  man,  and  I  did  sell 
to  one  who,  when  I  reported  to  him,  accused  me  of  lying  in 
order  to  buy  up  the  property  cheap.  He  paid  dear  for  his 
questioning  my  honesty  and  died  in  grief  from  his  loss  and  is 
in  the  hands  of  the  devil  to-day  because  he  judged  me  by  him- 
self. 

As  many  know  without  my  telling  them  again,  I  have  had 
more  experiences  over  vast  territory  in  mining  and  have 
financed  several  large  deals,  and  up  to  within  a  very  few  years 
there  were  but  few  tricks  in  the  trade  that  I  was  not  up  to.  I 
have  made  a  greater  number  of  enemies  from  not  robbing  them 
of  all  they  had  than  I  have  from  ever  having  taking  any  one's 
money  that  failed  to  pay  them  a  dividend.  My  experience  in 
the  deals  in  this  part  of  my  life  will  be  of  very  little  value  to 
others,  so  I  shall  not  relate  many  of  them. 

I  grub-staked  three  men.  They  went  into  the  region  that 
promised  great  mining  possibilities  and  made  a  location  and 
did  the  required  assessment  work,  tried  to  sell  and  could  get 
nothing.  I  came  the  next  year  and  saw  that  the  prospect  bid 
fair,  but  it  would  be  in  the  deep  before  anything  of  a  wealth- 
producing  nature  was  brought  to  the  surface.  I  wanted  them 
to  put  up.  They  had  practiced  before  the  bar  that  had  bottles 


THE    MEANING   OF   SUCCESS.  235 

instead  of  legal  tomes  behind  it,  and  had  put  all  of  their  wealth 
up  to  the  grog  dealer  and  they  were  thirsty  and  were  behind 
in  their  board  bill  and  I  bought  them  out  at  their  own  price. 

I  went  to  the  claim  and  commenced  digging  and  driving 
the  drill  aided  by  three  men  who  belonged  to  the  union  and 
who  struck  on  me  because  I  insisted  upon  working  more  than 
eight  hours  a  day.  In  the  twelve  or  fourteen  that  I  would 
work  I  did  more  than  both  of  them  would  do  in  their  sixteen. 
I  was  not  long  there  by  myself  until  I  became  convinced  that 
others  might  see  greater  wealth  in  the  future  in  that  hole  in 
the  ground  than  I  could  see  and  there  had  been  a  big  strike  of 
rich  ore  in  a  near-by  claim. 

The  men  who  struck  me  for  a  deal  thought  that  I  knew 
nothing  about  the  business  I  would  not  be  digging  myself 
and  had  not  heard  of  the  big  strike,  and  therefore  imagined  * 
that  they  were  getting  the  advantage  of  me  when  they  made 
me  an  offer  that  would  have  bought  a  big  farm  in  Iowa.  I 
smelled  a  rat.  It  was  a  surprise  to  me  and  I  felt  my  blood 
thickening  up  in  an  instant  and  thought  of  what  might  be  in 
store  for  me  in  the  future,  and  putting  my  thoughts  into  action 
I  pulled  the  lids  of  my  eyes  down  and  asked  them,  "Do  you 
see  anything  green?" 

In  twenty- four  hours  time  the  offer  was  trebled,  and  having 
been  one  of  a  party  on  many  occasions  where  two  fools  met 
I  said,  "Yes,"  and  I  had  soon  placed  to  my  bank  account  more 
money  than  I  ever  again  had  placed  there  through  any  mining 
transaction,  and  had  I  quit  the  business  then  I  surely  must 
have  been  much  better  off  than  I  was  in  six  years  afterwards 
from  having  gone  into  it  deeper  than  ever. 

I  became  the  possessor  of  a  property  that  bid  fair  to  be  a 
great  dividend  producer,  but  having  no  money  to  work  it, 
organized  a  company.  I  offered  shares  for  sale  to  my  friends 
in  the  East  and  all  around,  which  were  taken  on  my  reputation 
and  word  without  question.  This  money  was  judiciously 


236  THE    MEANING   OF    SUCCESS. 

invested  and  after  spending  nearly  one-fourth  of  a  million  dol- 
lars the  property  proved  worthless.  The  vein,  instead  of 
widening  otit  and  becoming  richer,  narrowed  in  and  became 
poorer.  It  was  wedge  shaped,  but  instead  of  the  point  being 
up  it  was  down.  The  walls  were  there,  both  hanging  and 
foot,  and  every  mark  of  what  Freiburg  mineralogists  and  min- 
ing experts'  told  us  could  not  fail  to  be  a  great  wealth  producer. 

Seeing  that  to  go  any  further  would  only  be  like  the  man 
sinking  in  quicksand,  I  made  an  outcry  and  told  the  truth  by 
saying  that  the  property  was  not  worth  a  canceled  postage 
stamp,  and  that  all  of  our  investments  were  lost  and  that  I 
was  going  to  quit  and  make  no  further  efforts,  but  that  since 
the  investments  were  made  upon  my  recommendation  I  would 
return  every  man  his  money  in  a  product  of  a  mine  of  which 
I  had  great  quantities  of  shares  and  which  they  could  sell,  for 
it  was  selling  freely  then  and  in  still  greater  quantities  now.  I 
sent  to  each  stockholder  the  names  and  addresses  of  all  the 
stockholders,  giving  them  an  opportunity  to  correspond  with 
each  other  and  sixty  days'  time  to  determine  whether  they 
would  take  my  offer  or  not,  not  for  a  moment  thinking  that 
they  would  do  otherwise. 

A  bright  idea  struck  a  New  England  Yankee,  who  had  a 
good  lot  of  money  gained  from  deals  in  stocks  and  Board  of 
Trade  transactions,  that  I  was  just  as  he  would  be  and  was 
doing  only  what  he  would  do.  He  wrote  me  a  letter  in  sub- 
stance saying  that  he  did  not  propose  to  accept  any  such  offer, 
that  I  had  got  his  and  other  people's  money  and  now  wanted 
to  rob  them  by  getting  back  air  the  stock  for  a  song  and  that 
he  did  not  propose  to  be  "yanked"  in  that  way  and  dared  me  to 
name  a  price  I  would  receive  for  my  stock,  which  was  consid- 
erable over  a  majority  of  all  the  shares. 

I  struck  while  the  iron  was  hot  and  telegraphed  him  that 
if  in  thirty  days  he  would  pay  each  and  every  stockholder  the 
original  amount  they  had  paid  in  that  I  would  sell  him  my 


THE    MEANING    OF    SUCCESS.  237 

holdings  for  one-fourth  of  what  he  had  paid  for  the  stock 
standing  out.  I  published  his  letter  and  my  telegraphic  reply 
and  mailed  them  to  every  stockholder.  In  thirty  days'  time 
they  all  had  their  money  and  I  had  my  price.  Out  of  more 
than  three  hundred  men  who  had  invested  with  me  upon  my 
representation  there  were  but  ten  who  stayed  by  me  and  judged 
me  to  be  honest  like  themselves.  I  did  well  by  them,  the 
others  not  only  lost  what  they  paid  in,  but  the  sharp  man  who 
accused  me  of  being  a  rascal  lost  his  money  and  twice  as  much 
more,  amounting  in  all  to  half  a  million  dollars,  trying  to  prove 
to  the  world  that  I  was  a  sharper  seeking  to  defraud  people 
who  had  placed  confidence  in  me.  My  conscience  was  clear 
and  I  had  more  money  than  any  or  all  who  had  followed  the 
lead  of  the  sharper. 

I  found  that  the  mining  business  was  so  alluring  as  to 
attract  most  of  the  get-rich-quick  people,  as  well  as  all  of  the 
sharpers  and  unprincipled  men  from  all  parts  of  the  world, 
and  I  began  to  believe  that,  were  I  endowed  with  twice  my 
natural  wisdom  and  cunning,  there  was  no  money  in  the  min- 
ing business  for  me  unless  I  threw  honesty  to  the  winds  and 
went  in  on  general  principles  in  rascality  and  robbery. 

When  the  oil  excitement  struck  Texas  I  owned  a  large 
mineral  rights  claim  in  a  southern  county,  and  not  far  from 
where  the  big  gushers  had  been  struck,  and  for  which  I  was 
offered  all  sorts  of  prices.  I  told  the  company  that  offered 
me  the  biggest  of  any  that  that  amount  of  money  was  so 
much  greater  than  I  had  been  accustomed  to  that  it  might 
make  me  crazy;  that  I  had  been  used  to  getting  along  on 
smaller  amounts  and  that  I  could  continue  to  do  so,  and  besides 
I  had  so  many  poor  kin  that  the  amount  offered  would  not 
make  them  all  as  rich  as  myself ;  that  I  could  bore  a  few  holes 
myself,  and  if  the  oil  was  on  the  property  I  had  ways  and 
means  of  taking  care  of  it. 

I  knew  with  next  to  a  certainty  that  there  was  no  oil 


238  THE    MEANING   OF   SUCCESS. 

underneath  the  Damon  Mound,  yet  as  a  flyer  I  sent  out  to 
my  many  friends,  patrons  and  poor  kin  a  prospectus,  tell- 
ing them  of  what  other  people  claimed  I  had;  that  I  was 
going  to  divide  the  six  hundred  acres  into  five-acre  lots;  that 
I  was  going  to  bore  on  four  of  them,  and  if  oil  was  found  I 
would  then  sell  stock  on  the  basis  of  forty-five  thousand  dollars 
for  each  five-acre  tract,  I  taking  fifty-five  thousand  myself; 
that  this  would  be  divided  into  ten-dollar  shares,  making  a 
million-dollar  corporation  for  each  five  acres.  I  sent  to  each 
an  option  they  were  to  sign  and  return  to  me,  they  agreeing 
in  sixty  days'  time  from  the  date  I  struck  oil  on  the  four  dif- 
ferent five-acre  tracts  to  take  and  pay  for  the  number  of  shares 
subscribed  for. 

They  sent  in  nearly  two  million  dollars'  worth  of  options 
on  this  basis  in  a  very  short  time.  The  oil  schemers  and 
swindlers  were  advertising  at  a  terrific  rate  in  all  papers 
throughout  the  land,  and  the  people,  including  the  hired  girl 
and  the  jehu,  were  well  up  on  oil  investing  schemes,  and  it 
did  seem  more  madness  not  to  invest  than  to  'invest. 

I  spent  no  money  in  boring,  but  the  wildcats  did,  and 
some  of  them  up  'to  within  a  few  feet  of  my  side  lines,  and 
they  bored  and  bored,  and  it  turned  out  just  as  I  expected ;  in 
fact,  just  as  I  knew  it  would,  and  the  territory  was  quickly 
abandoned  after  perhaps  a  million  or  more  dollars  had  been 
expended  in  boring  there  and  from  five  to  fifty  times  the 
amount  lost  by  people  who  invested  in  wildcat  stocks,  issued 
based  on  the  oil's  being  there. 

At  a  cost  of  several  hundred  dollars  I  sent  back  to  all  who 
had  sent  me  their  options,  the  same,  stamping  on  the  face  of 
them,  "Null  and  void  and  of  no  value."  There  might  have 
been  upwards  of  ten  thousand  or  more  of  these  options.  Not 
less  than  five  hundred  or  perhaps  one  thousand  wrote  to  me 
accusing  me  of  being  all  sorts  of  a  swindler,  yes,  as  I  could  see 
it,  for  no  other  reason  than  that  I  had  not  swindled  one  of 


THE    MEANING   OF   SUCCESS.  239 

them  out  of  one  cent  of  their  money — would  scorn  to  do  such 
a  thing — and  because  I  was  the  only  honest  man  they  had  had 
dealings  or  corresponded  with.  These  letters  would  have 
made  me  feel  very  bad  but  for  the  fact  of  my  receiving  thous- 
ands and  thousand!  containing  expressions  in  the  very  opposite 
direction.  Experiences  of  this  sort  in  great  numbers  have 
taught  me  to  believe  that  there  are  numbers  of  people  who 
have  only  evil  thoughts,  and  those  continually,  and  the  num- 
ber of  people  who  want  to  be  humbugged  are  even  greater  than 
P.  T.  Barnum  estimated  them. 

A  club  was  formed  by  a  college  graduating  class,  prom- 
ising each  other  to  come  together  every  year  and  give  their 
experiences  during  the  interim.  Among  other  conditions  in  the 
by-laws  was  this :  "That  no  one  should  lie  in  making  a  deal, 
they  would  go  out  of  business  first."  At  the  first  annual  there 
was  riot  a  single  man  there  who  was  in  business,  and  it  was 
then  that  the  question  was  propounded :  "What  shall  we  do  to 
make  an  honest  living?"  And  it  has  been  the  question  ever 
since  at  each  successive  annual  meeting  for  fifty  years;  yet 
each  member  for  and  during  all  that  time  had  money  enough 
to  attend  the  annual  meeting  at  no  inconsiderable  expense,  and 
some  of  them  took  their  wives  and  families  and  some  their 
grandchildren  with  them. 

The  wisdom  developed  in  the  discussion  of  the  original 
question  by  this  club  enabled  them  all  to  go  back  wealthy, 
and  who  shall  say  but  that  "in  the  multitude  of  counsel  there  is 
wisdom  ?" 

It  is  not  true  that  all  tradesmen  are  liars  and  cheats.  The 
most  successful  merchant  and  dealer  is  the  one  who  will  not 
deal  in  goods  he  has  to  lie  about  to  sell.  He  is  the  farmer 
who  never  puts  all  the  little,  faulty  berries  or  fruit  at  the  bot- 
tom of  the  box  or  basket  or  barrel  and  who  does  not  try  to  sell 
guinea  eggs  at  hens'  egg  prices. 

It  is  the  cheat  of  cheats  who  says  that  there  is  no  honesty 


240  THE    MEANING   OF   SUCCESS. 

in  trade  and  business,  and  I  have  never  yet  come  across  a 
man  or  woman  who  was  all  the  time  on  the  lookout  for  being 
cheated  but  that  they  would  cheat  every  time  they  got  a  chance. 
The  man  who  buys  a  basket  of  peaches  that  is  bushed  with  a 
pink  muslin  cover  is  a  fool  if  he  expects  not  to  be  cheated 
both  in  false  packing  and  false  bottom.  The  more  beautiful 
the  doll's  dress  the  more  frail  the  doll,  was  impressed  upon 
me  by  a  little  girl  for  whom  I  bought  a  beautifully  dressed 
doll,  which  she  let  fall  upon  the  floor,  whereupon  some  of  its 
anatomy  was  smashed.  Upon  my  saying:  "That 'was  too 
bad,"  though  the  child  was  only  four  years  old  she  said : 

"You  ought  to  have  better  sense  than  to  buy  a  doll  already 
dressed.  Mamma  never  done  that." 

We  buy  a  wagon  not  so  much  because  of  its  highly  colored 
paint  as  on  the  reputation  of  the  man  who  built  the  wagon.  We 
expect  to  be  cheated  every  time  we  deal  with  a  horse-trading 
deacon,  and  no  matter  how  cheap  goods  may  be  offered  us 
by  a  cheap  John  dealer,  the  man  who  buys  knows  that  he  has 
thrown  half  of  his  money  away  as  compared  with  what  he 
would  have  done  had  he  bought  the  goods  of  an  honest  man. 
One  would  much  'prefer  to  trade  with  another  in  whom  he 
had  unlimited  confidence,  is  the  reason  why  all  honest  dealers 
prosper  and  have  new  customers  who  stay  to  become  old. 

When  the  first  man  who  commenced  the  express  business 
in  the  United  States  had  built  quite  a  business  carrying  pack- 
ages between  Boston  and  Lowell,  he  established  an  agent  in  the 
latter  town,  who  in  a  short  time  and  at  the  very  first  oppor- 
tunity that  he  had  ran  away  with  a  considerable  amount  of 
money.  The  owner  stopped  his  express  business  and  spent  all 
of  the  money  he  had  and  borrowed  more  tracking  the  thief 
up  and  finally  landed  him  in  the  penitentiary,  where  he  was 
given  a  good  long-  term.  The  owner  then  went  back  to  his 
business  and  all  of  the  farmers  and  merchants  patronized  him, 


THE  MEANING  OF  SUCCESS.  241 

and  from  that  on  his  business  grew  until  today  it  reaches 
more  than  twice  around  the  world. 

First  convince  the  public  that  you  are  a  man  of  your  word 
and  the  public  will  place  confidence  in  you,  but  not  before. 

Education  as  conducted  in  the  last  generation  or  two  since 
public  school  teaching  has  become  a  trade,  a  graft  Or  pull,  has 
not  been  conducive  to  either  public  morals  or  the  diffusion  of 
knowledge,  though  it  may  be  said  it  has  given  an  opportunity 
for  the  "survival  of  the  fittest,"  but  to  no  greater  extent  than 
it  has  given  an  opportunity  for  the  young  natural  born  thief  to 
develop  into  perfection  in  that  line. 

Our  public  school  system,  as  I  view  it,  is  wrong  in  many 
respects,  and  particularly  in  that  moral  economy  is  not  taught 
in  the  first  grades.  I  believe  that  the  only  book  leading  in 
this  direction,  that  of  psychology,  can  be  credited  to  a  sermon 
delivered  by  the  great  and  noble  Dr.  Thomas  of  Chicago'  on 
the  subject,  "The  Importance  of  Moral  Economy  Being 
Taught  in  the  Public  School,"  and  of  which  I  had  printed  an 
edition  of  twenty-five  thousand,  which  were  sent  to  all  the 
principal  educators  in  the  United  States  and  were  also  dis- 
tributed at  the  National  Educational  Convention  held  in  1883 
in  Montreal,  Canada. 

This  Dr.  Thomas  was  the  man  who  was  turned  out  of  the 
Methodist  Church  the  next  year  after  this  for  having  preached 
that  God  was  a  God  of  love  and  not  a  God  of  vengeance.  All 
the  good  people  who  belonged  to  the  Methodist  Church  at 
that  time  have  wept  bitter  tears  of  sorrow,  and  today,  as  fast 
as  those  who  were  at  that  Rockford  (Illinois)  Conference 
who  voted  him  out,  step  over  the  line,  they  are  embraced  by 
old  Beelzebub  for  the  reason,  as  I  see  it,  that  like  begets  like; 
that  it  was  God's  first  law,  and  never  is  it  more  sure,  in 
my  estimation  that  the  man  or  woman  who  is  always  thinking 
that  God  is  a  cruel,  unrelenting,  pain-pleasing  God  of  ven- 


242  THE   MEANING   OF   SUCCESS. 

geance  and  no  mercy,  just  as  the  heathen  pagan  make  their 
God — those  people  will  be  received  by  just  such  a  God. 

Just  so  with  him  who  looks  upon  his  great  Creator  as  being 
one  of  love  and  kindness,  of  goodness  and  of  grace,  and  is 
ever  ready  to  adore  and  return  thanks  to  that  great  Creator  for 
all  the  beauty  and  joy  and  pleasure  that  He  has  given  us  on 
this  earth,  that  person  is  sure  to  be  a  partner  with  that  sort  of 
a  Creator  when  he  crosses  over  the  line,  and  there  will  be  no 
Beelzebub  bubbling  and  smoking  hell. 

"According  to  thy  faith  so  be  it  unto  thee,"  was  enunciated 
by  the  Babe  in  the  manger  whose  star  the  wise  men  saw,  which 
causedthem  to  journey  to  the  WEST,  which  was  nothing  won- 
derful to  my  compeers  in  this  life  where  all  wise  men,  be  they 
in  the  East  or  in  the  West,  at  all  times  see  the  star  of  great- 
ness rising  as  its  need  is  demanded.  He  who  has  faith  in 
evil,  the  like  shall  he  receive.  Unto  the  evil  all  things  are  evil, 
and  the  pure  in  heart  that  sees  no  guide  shall  inherit  everlast- 
ing pleasure  and  enjoyment.  Nothing  is  more  sure  than  that 
we  shall  leave  the  fruit  of  our  sowing,  and  nothing  is  more 
sure  than  that  like  will  beget  like.  It  is  a  Bible  truth ;  it  is  a 
truth  that  has  stood  in  all  the  past  and  will  never  be  departed 
from. 

The  father  who  teaches  his  son  from  his  earliest  infancy 
to  speak  the  truth  with  an  open  eye  and  to  fear  not,  and  who 
departs  not  from  this  line  of  teaching  in  anything,  is  the  father 
who  may  expect  in  old  age  to  be  glorified  and  surrounded  with 
joy  and  pleasure,  while  the  one  who  is  negligent  to  this  greai 
truth  may  expect  to  go  to  his  grave  with  sorrow  and  regret 
and  leave  behind  him  nothing  worthy  of  a  name,  and  as  this 
is  a  truth  as  respects  boys,  it  is  doubly  true  as  respects  girls, 
for  "she  who  rocks  the  cradle  rules  the  nation." 

This  reminds  me  that  we  no  longer  hear  the  good  old  lullaby 
cradle  songs  that  the  great  men  of  my  age  were  rocked  to  sleep 
by;  and  why  is  it  that  the  public  schools,  the  corner-stone  of 


THE   MEANING   OF   SUCCESS.  243 

which    is    the  Bible,    has  departed    from  its    teachings,    and 
instead  of  home,  life  and  love  the  opposite  has  come  to  us  ? 

It  was  not  long  ago  that  I  was  expected  to>  make  a  talk 
before  a  large  body  of  men  belonging  to  an  order  that  perhaps 
has  done  more  to  elevate  the  human  race  than  all  the  other 
societies  on  earth,  and  when  going  to  the  stand — I  knew  the 
hall — I  stumbled  on  and  kicked  off  the  lights,  and,  command- 
ing silence,  I  repeated : 

"Rock-a-by,  baby,  on  the  tree  top, 

When    the   wind   blows   the   cradle  will  rock, 

When  the  bough  bends  the  cradle  will  fall; 

And  down   will  come  baby,  cradle  and  all." 

Throwing  the  light  on  and  facing  my  audience,  I  discov- 
ered there  was  not  a  dry  eye  there  that  had  seen  the  light  of 
day  thirty-five  years,  and  then  I  addressed  myself  to  those  who 
had  never  heard  this  song,  and  in  doing  so  was  wildly 
applauded  by  all. 

If  to-day  I  were  going  out  in  the  world  to  conquer  with 
an  army  of  invincibles  I  would  do  as  the  founder  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church,  adopt  songs  that  were  popular  with  the  old 
people,  and  I  would  destroy  all  but  a  few  that  were  popular 
with  the  young  of  to-day. 

To  make  a  comparison  between  the  songs  of  fifty  years  ago 
and  those  of  to-day  would  be  like  comparing  good  Christian 
doctrine  with  paganism.  The  songs  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race 
fifty  years  hence  will  have  as  little  of  the  "Frenchy"  and  the 
"Dutchy"  and  the  "Dago"  in  them  as  did  the  songs  of  fifty 
years  ago.  In  the  next  fifty  years  there  are  going  to  be  more 
revolutions  looking  to  the  advancement  of  the  human  race 
in  every  line  that  can  be  advanced  upon,  than  there  have  been  in 
the  last  three  hundred  years  of  more.  The  great  scholars  of 
the  day  and  the  great  lawmakers  of  the  land  and  the 'great 
business  interests  and  the  captains  of  industry  are  combining 


244  THE    MEANING   OF   SUCCESS. 

looking  to  this  end,  and  though  fierce  be  their  fight  with  the 
saloon  and  the  dago  element  and  the  ignorant  and  the  indiffer- 
ent, the  bright  line  of  truth  is  going  to  win  out,  and  when  it 
once  shines  upon  this  earth,  as  it  will,  life  will  then  be  worth 
living. 

That  such  a  man  as  Horace  Greeley  could  return  now  and 
be  considered  a  reputable  citizen  by  the  respectable  element  in 
the  United  States,  no  man  of  common  intelligence  will  dare 
affirm. 

The  pulse  and  brain  of  this  great  United  States  is  not  to 
be  controlled  by  perfidy,  falsehood,  fraud,  deceit  or  knavery. 
\yhere  some  see  only  misfortune  and  ill  omens  in  the  organi- 
zation of  our  laboring  classes,  I  see  a  bright  star  beyond  that 
will  light  the  way  of  a  people  that  heretofore  have  been  con- 
trolled only  by  the  blind  leading  the  blind  and  by  the  dema- 
gogue of  the  pulpit  as  well  as  of  the  rostrum,  for  gain,  pander- 
ing to  their  ignorance,  as  well  as  indulging  in  their  wrongs  and 
vices. 

No  such  man  as  he  of  yellow  journalism  can  buy  his  way 
to  any  place  of  great  prominence,  though  he  may  be  able  to 
create  a  storm  in  centers  where  the  vile,  ignorant  and  unpa- 
triotic are  the  greatest  in  numbers  and  where  rum  money 
never  fails  to  bring  applause.  So  long  as  there  is  an  element 
that  can  be  appealed  to  by  the  designing  demagogue  in  politics 
as  well  as  by  the  hypocritical  preacher  in  religion,  there  will 
be  trouble,  for  when  the  rabble  hiss  patriots  tremble. 


FISH,  SNAKE  AND  OTHER  STORIES. 


Fish,  bear  and  snake  stories  are  always  in  order,  because 
they  always  have  been  and  always  will  be.  From  the  days  of 
Nimrod  and  Samson,  with  his  jawbone,  and  Jonah  smoking  a 
cigar  in  the  whale's  belly,  and  every  one  having  experiences  in 
this  line  will  tell  of  them,  and  they  are  not  supposed  to  lose 
anything  by  their  telling  and  being  retold. 

My  first  fish  story  would  start  with  the  catching  of  a  very 
small  minnow,  in  a  spring-house  brook,  that  grew  and  grew 
and  still  grows,  for  it  is  not  many  moons  ago  that  I  saw  from 
my  home  on  the  Pacific  Coast  a  sight  in  the  Bay  of  Monterey 
that,  had  I  been  able  to  photograph  it,  people  would  say  it  was 
fishy,  just  as  thousands  will  say  my  telling  of  it  is,  notwith- 
standing I  promised  this  should  be  a  book  of  truths. 

A  school  of  one  hundred  or  more  spouting  whales  came  in 
the  bay,  and  I  was  astonished  at  no  one's  being  surprised  so 
much  as  myself,  though  history  tells  that  this  was  the  great- 
est whaling  station  on  the  Pacific  Coast  up  to  within  the  rec- 
ollection of  men  now  living.  This  Bay  of  Monterey,  Califor- 
nia, on  which  Santa  Cruz  is  situated,  was,  since  the  whales 
were  created,  their  breeding  grounds.  I  am  told  that  the 
cypress  that  grows  on  the  point  overlooking  this  bay  is  of  the 
same  variety  that  is  found  only  in  the  Holy  Land  and  is  spoken 
of  in  the  Scriptures.  This  I  believe  no  one  will  question  or 
doubt  who  has  ever  driven  through  them,  for  a  more  beauti- 
ful drive  cannot  be  found  on  the  American  continent,  as  I 
have  heard  thousands  of  greater  globe-trotters  than  I  pro- 
claim. 

There  are  many  fish  stories  that  have  been  relegated  to  the 
past  since  the  Pacific  Coast  and  its  tributary  country  have  been 

245 


246  FISH,  SNAKE  AND  OTHER  STORIES. 

explored  and  the  fish  found  therein  told  of.  Few  who  have 
not  studied  or  visited  the  fishing  waters  of  the  Pacific  Coast 
know  much  of  or  about -them,  only  as  they  learn  through  a 
tin  can,  and  the  can  only  teaches  of  the  salmon  that  in  point  of 
numbers  and  the  wealth  that  they  have  brought  to  the  world 
would  compare  with  the  cod  of  mackerel  of  the  Atlantic  as 
would  Barnum's  lilliputian  Tom  Thumb  with  his  eight-foot 
giant.  "What  a  lie!"  some  one  will  sa'y,  but  he  who  inves- 
tigates the  matter  will  find  that  my  comparison  is  tame  instead 
of  being  excessive.  This  is  not  the  biggest  fish  story  that  I  have 
in  store  if  yon  will  but  read  more. 

A  few  years  ago  I  was  visiting  my  birthplace  and  I  went 
at  four  A.  M.  down  to  the  Dowagiac  Creek,  if  not  to  catch, 
then  to  see  the  fish  and  to  see  if  there  was  any  evidence  left 
of  what  I  had  once  seen  at  this  point  upon  the  steel  bridge; 
while  standing  cogitating  upon  the  past  and  seeing  no 
fish  going  up  the  stream  as  then,  an  old  man  came  walking 
down  the  road  who  resembled  Father  Time  somewhat.  He 
seemed  timid  and  somewhat  afraid  of  me,  as  he  might  be  of  a 
ghost.  I  spoke  to  him  in  as  clever  a  way  as  I  could  command 
and  asked  if  he  was  an  old  settler.  He  said  he  was,  but  I  did 
not  recognize  his  face.  I  asked: 

"Do  the  sturgeon  ever  come  up  this  stream  any  more  at 
this  season  of  the  year  to  their  spawning  ground  above  ?" 
He  looked  at  me  in  wonder  and  amazement  and  said : 

"I  never  heard  of  them  doing  so." 

"Then  you  are  not  an  old  settler?" 

"I  am  so  taken"  was  his  reply. 

I  then  told  him  that  I  had  seen  this  stream,  when  there 
was  more  water  in  it  than  now  at  this  season  of  the  year,  so 
filled  with  sturgeon  going  up  that  one  could  hardly  see  the 
water;  that  I  had  seen  a  wagon  so  loaded,  scooped  up  as  it 
were  with  a  pitchfork  and  hooked  up  by  pothooks,  that  the 
horses  were  unable  to  pull  the  wagon  up  that  bank.  The  old 


FISH,   SNAKE  AND   OTHER  STORIES.  247 

man  looked  at  me  with  wide-open  eyes  and  commenced  shying 
off  towards  the  grocery,  which  was  a  mile  away  in  the  town 
of  Niles.  I  felt  that  I  had  done  my  good  work  and  that  I 
would  hear  from  it  again  soon. 

That  day  I  was  visiting  with  some  friends,  when  one  pres- 
ent, and  who  was  as  ignorant  as  the  old  man  was  himself,  told 
the  ten  or  fifteen  present  about  what  he  had  heard  that  morn- 
ing down-town,  the  biggest  fish  story  of  his  life  and  he  was 
asked  to  repeat  it.  He  said: 

"This  morning  as  old  Mr. was  going  to  town 

he  met  a  tramp  in  store  clothes,  who  held  him  up  on  the 
bridge,  and  after  not  being  able  to  get  anything  from  him 
told  him — that  is,  the  tramp  told  him — that  he  had  seen  the  day 
when  the  people  round  about  here  drove  their  wagons  in  the 
middle  of  this  stream  and  filled  them  so  full  of  fish  that  their 
horses  could  not  pull  them  up  the  bank  on  the  other  side  unless 
they  doubled  their  teams,  and  that  the  people  here  had  in  this 
way  provided  themselves  with  fish  for  the  year,  pickling  and 
afterwards  drying  them." 

The  question  was  asked,  "Who>  could  the  tramp  have 
been?" 

An  old  man  present  who  knew  my  early  habits  and  who 
also  knew  of  the  truth  of  my  fish  story  said :  "I  can  tell  you 
who  the  tramp  was." 

Upon  being  requested  to  do  so  he  pointed  to  me  and  then 
said,  "There  he  is ;  and  he  told  the  truth." 

But  for  the  verification  by  the  old  citizen,  who  was  held  in 
high  esteem  in  the  church  circles,  my  name  would  have  been 
Dennis  from  telling  the  truth  about  my  own  birthplace  to  men 
and  women  above  middle  age. 

There  is  no  longer  a  sturgeon  to  be  found  in  all  Lake 
Michigan,  where  in  my  memory  millions  and  millions  were  to 
be  found,  as  I  have  seen  the  buffalo  on  the  Western  plains, 
I  have  lived  to  see  the  two  pass  away. 


24&  FISH,   SNAKE  AND  OTHER  STORIES. 

Permit  a  little  digression,  reader.  This  chapter  is  being 
taken  down  by  my  .stenographer  from  a  seat  in  a  buggy  while 
I  am  driving  through  this  land,  a  veritable  paradise,  driving  as 
I  am  over  roads  that  were  but  blazed  ways  and  trails  in  the 
great  forests  of  trees  that  have  passed  away  in  my  time. 
Paradise,  ask  you?  "Yes!"  And  I  would  ask  back,  "Does 
civilization  civilize  ?" 

From  this  very  spot  I  can  look  over  a  land  that  within 
my  recollection  was  inhabited  by  the  Indians,  who  lived  without 
care  and  with  but  little  fear  and  without  toil.  When  they 
wanted  fish  they  went  to  the  streams  and  the  lakes  lying  all 
through  this  land,  and  without  baiting  a  hook  or  losing  time 
picked  out  of  the  water  just  the  size  fish  they  wanted  and  of 
the  sort  their  fancy  called  for.  When  they  wanted  meat  they 
could  go  to  the  marshes  nearby  in  any  direction  and  kill  a 
deer  without  arrow  or  spear  and  as  you  might  walk  in  your 
sheepfbld  and  take  a  mutton  or  a  spring  lamb.  When  they 
wanted  a  bird  they  only  had  to  wait  until  the  wild  turkey 
went  to  roost,  like  the  darkey  down  South  to-day  would 
do  if  your  chickens  were  not  under  lock  and  key.  When 
they  wanted  fruit,  each  and  all  in  their  seasons,  be  it  the  wild 
strawberry,  the  dewberry,  the  blackberry,  the  raspberry  or  the 
grape  which  grew  in  great  clusters  all  around,  or  the  wild  haw 
or  the  wild  crabapple,  which,  when  it  ripened,  fell  on  the 
ground  and  was  covered  by  leaves  and  then  by  snow,  which 
preserved  it  all  the  winter  for  next  spring  and  summer  use. 
Would  that  not  make  a  paradise  of  any  country? 

And  what  can  be  said  of  this  locality,  my  birthplace,  can 
be  said  yet  to  a  greater  extent  of  the  other  sections  of  this 
land,  of  God's  blessing  that  I  know  of,  and  I  believe  that 
greater  and  still  better  was  to  have  been  found  in  the  latitudes 
of  Kentucky  and  Tennessee. 

Tell  me  that  Cortez  brought  a  better  civilization  or  Chris- 
tianity than  he  found  in  Mexico?  I  say  no ;  the  people  there  to- 


FISH,  SNAKE  AND  OTHER  STORIES. 

day  are  degrees  worse  off  than  when  that  pirate  landed  on  the 
shores  of  America. 

Answer  the  question  to  suit  yourself  whether  civilization 
civilizes  or  not,  but  I  believe  that  you  will  agree  with  me  in  my 
doubts  the  more  you  may  see  and  know  and  cannot  say  that 
I  am  only  dealing  in  fish  stories  and  raising  "fishy"  questions. 

Years  ago,  and  after  Tom  Bridger,  the  great  Western 
scout  and  a  great  American  character,  in  whose  honor  Fort 
Bridger  was  named,  had  made  the  Yellowstone  Park  some- 
what notorious  among  those  who  became  wise  as  to  our  coun- 
try's greatness  more  through  oral  than  through  books  or  news- 
paper reports. 

The  American  scout  and  trapper  from  the  earliest  days 
of  our  country's  history  was  a  peculiar  character  unto  him- 
self. What  one  knew  the  other  found  out  even  in  the  remot- 
est parts  of  our  country  by  transmission  through  word  of 
mouth  and  never  through  letter  or  print.  No  character  was 
more  repulsive  or  more  shunned  than  a  newspaper  reporter 
or  an  editor  would  be.  I  knew  years  and  years  before  any 
considerable  portion  of  the  public  knew,  nearly  all  about  Yel- 
lowstone Park,  and  years  before  the  Government  set  it  aside 
as  a  national  park,  and  it  should  have  been  called  "Bridger's 
Land"  for  he  more  than  any  other  was  its  explorer,  guide, 
scout  and  defender. 

He  was  a  man  of  indomitable  perseverance,  self-educated, 
self-made  and  self-willed,  and  a  truer  man  never  looked 
another  square  in  the  face.  He  was  one  who  exemplified  the 
truth  of  the  assertion  that  "truth  is  stranger  than  fiction." 
He  had  told  of  the  geysers  and  waterfalls  and  lakes  and  other 
wonderful  things  in  nature's  field  of  wonders  that  were  to 
be  seen  in  that  country.  His  descriptions  \vere  always  found 
good.  He  told  of  the  wonderful  fish  that  were  to  be  found  up 
there  and  the  wonderful  beavers  and  the  immense  bear,  both 
as  to  size  and  number,  and  that  no  Indian  came  within  its 


250  FISH,   SNAKE  AND  OTHER  STORIES. 

sacred  piecincts  for  they  considered  it  a  spirit  or  ghost  land. 
He  told  of  the  wonderful  elk,  both  as  to  size  and  number.  He 
would  go  in  there  in  the  montho'f  June  and  come  out  early  in  the 
month  of  September,  at  the  same  season  of  the  year  that  the 
big  elk  and  the  big  bear  came  there  to  enjoy  the  beautiful 
scenes  of  nature  as  well  as  the  rich  grasses,  and  just  as  the 
wealthiest  and  greatest  men  of  our  nation  and  of  the  world 
in  general  go  there  now  at  the  same  season  of  the  year. 

Therefore  Bridger  came  in  contact  with  not  the  ordinary 
of  any  race  or  species  but  the  extraordinary  O'f  all.  He  was 
a  man  who  could  tell  a  story  and,  doubt  it  who  might,  no  one 
dared  to  snicker  or  squint  his  eye.  To  be  questioned  in  what 
he  told  was  a  mortal  insult,  and  Jim  Bridger  never  brooked 
anything  of  that  sort. 

He  told  how  one  day  he  was  out  hunting  in  the  Park  with 
his  favorite  and  always  to  be  relied  upon  rifle  and  bowie  knife, 
and  he  noticed  a  herd  of  elk  a  very  short  distance  away,  and, 
being  in  need  of  that  sort  of  meat,  fired  away  at  an  elk  whose 
antlers  would  measure  not  less  than  twelve  or  fifteen  feet  from 
tip  to  tip.  His  gun  went  off  all  right,  but  the  elk  never  moved 
or  seemed  to  notice  it,  and  he  fired  again  and  again  with  ditto 
as  a  result  each  time.  He  clubbed  his  gun  and  stole  up  towards 
the  elk  to  kill  it  in  that  way,  when  he  ran  up  against  a  glass 
mountain  and  hurt  himself  and  was  astonished  to  find  that  that 
elk  was  twenty-five  miles  away  beyond  a  great  and  almost 
impassable  canyon. 

The  Absedian  mountain  in  the  Yellowstone  Park  which 
is  passed  by  all  tourists,  would,  but  for  the  color  of  the  glass, 
sanction  Bridger's  story. 

He  told  of  how  you  could  catch  beautiful  one-and-one-half- 
ponnd  mountain  trout  with  an  unbaited  hook  in  a  bubbling 
brook  or  mountain  stream  and  throw  it  over  on  the  other  side 
of  the  rock  or  ground  on  which  you  stood,  and,  without  tak- 
ing it  off  his  hook,  cook  it  in  the  hot  spring  just  below;  and 


FISH,  SNAKE  AND  OTHER  STORIES.  2$I 

of  another  place  where  the  hot  spring  broke  out  from  the  side 
of  the  mountain  and  ran  over  the  deep  cold  water  from  the 
mountain  stream,  and  .that  he  only  had  to  drop  an  unbaited 
hook  down  through  the  four  feet  of  two  hundred  degrees  hot 
water  and  catch  a  mountain  trout  in  the  cold  strata  below  and 
pull  it  up  through  the  hot  well  cooked  and  ready  for  the  mouth. 

These  pass  as  fish  stories,  but  I  have  done  the  same  as 
Bridger  said  might  be  done  and  so  can  any  one  else  who  will 
go  there. 

I  was  giving  my  experiences  and  telling  my  best  fish  sto- 
ries, all  truths,  before  a  body  of  gentlemen,  the  American  Hay 
Fever  Club,  at  the  Grand  Hotel  on  Mackinac  Island,  where 
we  would  meet  to  exchange  experiences  with  hay  fever  cures, 
and  after  mixing  drinks  tell  fish,  bear  and  snake  stories,  all 
of  which  had  to  be  vouched  for  in  some  way.  Several  good 
ones  had  been  told  and  I  told  the  above.  A  new  comer  or  two 
joined  the  party  'and  I  was  requested  to  tell  it  again,  but  being 
wise  I  declined  and  said  I  was  too  much  a  lover  of  Shakespeare 
to  do  anything  of  that  sort.  Of  course  I  was  asked  what  he 
had  to  do  with  it.  My  reply,  "He  neyer  repeats." 

Another  undertook  to  repeat  it  but  hearsay  stories  would 
not  go.  Quite  a  commotion  was  being  created  because  I  would 
not  reaffirm  my  story,  when  the  president  of  the  club,  who  was 
an  "all-rounder"  came  in.  After  speaking  to  all  of  the  boys 
he  wanted  to  know  the  cause  of  the  laughter  and  commotion. 
They  then  insisted  that  I  should  repeat  my  story  to  the  new- 
arrival.  I  knew  my  man  as  well  as  I  knew  what  was  in  the 
air.  This  being  his  first  season,  he  was  not  up  to  the  new 
by-laws  adopted  for  the  season's  recreation.  I  retold  the  fish 
story,  to  which  he  said : 

"That  is  all  right ;  I  have  been  there  and  done  it  myself." 

An  immediate  adjournment  was  taken  to  the  hall  below, 
where  several  had  previously  adjourned  to  play  billiards.  It 
cost  that  man  what  would  have  been  a  young  fortune  to  me  in 


252  FISH,  SNAKE  AND  OTHER  STORIES. 

my  day  in  wines  and  high-brand  champagnes  for  being  a  wit- 
ness to  a  first-class  fish  story. 

Two  days  after  this  at  the  same  place  I  started  out  to  the 
Snow  Islands  on  a  fishing  excursion  with  four  southern  Illi- 
nois gentlemen  and  their  wives.  I  having  previously  told  them 
that  I  would  carry  them  to  a  place  where  they  would  catch  more 
fish  in  one  day's  time  than  they  had  ever  seen  caught,  prom- 
ising that  I  would  pay  the  expenses  of  the  entire  party,  them- 
selves and  wives,  if  I  did  not  prove  what  I  said. 

The  understanding  was  that  all  of  the  fish  that  we  caught 
were  to  be  brought  to  the  hotel,  and  that  they  were  to  be 
brought  there  cleaned,  and  that  they  were  to  be  cooked,  that  it 
was  false  economy  and  not  the  proper  thing  to  do  to  catch  fish 
and  bring  them  out  for  the  women  to  clean.  One  of  the  party 
volunteered  to  "clean  all  the  fish  that  we  will  catch,"  and  he 
was  the  best  Nimrod  of  the  party  and  the  man  who  would 
rather  do  anything  else  than  perform  the  self-imposed  duty. 
When  we  started,  unbeknown  to  them,  I  hired  a  negro*  fish 
cleaner,  who  brought  with  him  two  or  three  twenty-five  pound 
sacks  of  salt.  The  darkey  came  up  to  me  and  said : 

"Boss,  whar  shall  I  put  de  salt?" 

I  said,  "Go  down  stairs  and  ask  the  steward." 

My  friends  looked  at  me  and  then  at  one  another,  and  I 
said : 

This  is  going  to  be  a  day  for  fish  deals  and  I  will  teach  you 
how  dangerous  it  will  be  to  question  any  of  my  fish  stories 
again  as  you  have  in  the  past." 

The  boat  we  had  was  in  good  command  and  under  charter 
for  the  day.  We  ran  into  a  good  cove  between  two  of  the 
many  hundreds  and  thousands  of  islands  up  there  and  the 
wheel  quit  turning  and  we  were  told  to  go  fishing.  In  four 
hours'  time  one  man  had  caught  three  hundred  and  twelve, 
another  had  caught  two  hundred  and  eighty,  another  had 
caught  two  hundred  and  sixty,  and  I  from  having  two 


FISH,  SNAKE  AND  OTHER  STORIES.  253 

hooks  on  my  line  had  caught  four  hundred  and  nine,  and  our 
judge  was  working  with  the  nigger  cleaning  the  fish  and  salt- 
ing them  down  in  a  box  and  he  declared  it  was  fun  and  would 
not  allow  any  of  us  to  interfere.  He  was  a  man  of  wealth 
as  well  as  humor  and  legal  learning  and  moved  that  we 
adjourn  and  go  home  that  night,  which  we  did. 

He  paid  every  cent  of  the  expenses  and  "set  'em  up"  in 
good  style  besides,  and  the  last  I  ever  heard  of  him  was  declar- 
ing that  though  I  was  the  greatest  fish  liar  on  earth  I  dealt  in 
the  most  remarkable  fish  truths  he  ever  heard. 

In  my  day  I  have  seen  many  strange  things  and  in  consid- 
erable numbers  that  no  one  else  or  but  very  few  ever  saw. 
I  have  seen  a  scow,  thirty  feet  long,  fourteen  feet  wide  and  two 
feet  deep,  moored  in  a  school  of  mullet  at  night  when  all 
around  was  dark,  in  Corpus  Christi  Bay,  when  by  the  raising 
of  a  lantern  in  the  center  of  the  boat  and  hitting  the  side 
with  the  oars,  in  five  minutes  the  boat  would  be  filled,  and  in 
ten  minutes  be  sunk  by  the  mullets  jumping  into  it'  if  the  light 
was  not  lowered.  This  boat  load  of  mullet  wrould  be  oared 
or  pushed  to  the  shore  where  the  people  of  Live  Oak  and 
adjoining  counties  (the  hog  counties  of  Texas)  had  driven 
thousands  of  hogs  there  to  be  fattened  on  the  mullet  that  were 
thrown  out  as  the  high  tide  receded. 

Now  the  man  living  on  the  west  coast  down  in  Florida 
or  three  hundred  miles  north  of  there  in  Georgia  and  South 
Carolina,  must  not  confound  these  Texas  mullet  with,  that  of 
their  sort  that  are  caught  by  the  millions  in  the  seine  on  the 
coast  down  there,  dry  salted  and  sold  to  the  farmers  who  come 
from  two  to  three  hundred  miles  in  their  one-horse,  two- 
wheeled  and  their  two-horse  and  four-horse  rigs  for  these 
salted  mullets,  for  which  they  pay  two  cents  apiece  and  which 
they  sell  for  "three  for  a  quarter"  and  take  pay  in  country 
produce  or  live  on  the  wagon  load  themselves  the  year  through. 

I  have  seen  at  one  time  as  far  as  the  eye  could  reach  and 


254  FISH,  SNAKE  AND  OTHER  STORIES. 

could  have  been  measured  one  hundred  and  eight  or  fifteen 
miles  in  distance,-one  and  a  quarter  miles  wide,  on  the  beach  of 
Corpus  Christi  Island,  Texas  (representing  the  high  and  low 
tide)  millions  of  sea  turtles  that  would  average  from  three  to 
six  hundred  pounds  each  and  possibly  more  millions  than  there 
ever  were  of  buffalo  on  the  great  American  plains. 

These  turtles  came  here  from  the  mighty  deep  and  the 
islands  of  the  sea  beyond  to  deposit  their  eggs  in  the  sandy 
seashore,  coming  with  high  tide,  and  as  the  tide  receded  the 
turtles  would  slide  in  under  one  another  so  as  to  look  like 
shingles  on  a  roof.  They  would  deposit  from  nine  to  twenty 
eggs  in  a  hole  they  made  in  the  ground,  how  I  cannot  tell  you, 
and  when  high  tide  came  they  floated  out  and  other  millions 
would  come.  The  turtles  only  came  there  about  six  days  in 
the  year  to  lay  their  eggs.  Where  they  went  no  man  knoweth. 
In  twenty-one  days'  time  the  top  eggs  in  the  turtle's  nest  of 
eggs  hatched  and  a  turtle  about  the  size  o>f  an  ordinary  man's 
thumb  commenced  moving  around  and  by  millions  they  would 
dazzle  the  eye,  confuse  the  vision  and  craze  the  comprehension. 

The  high  tide  came  in  and  they,  the  young  turtles,  floated 
out  with  it  to  go  no  man  knoweth  no  more  than  he  doth  where 
the  wind  listeth,  and  in  a  very  few  minutes  after  the  receding 
of  that  tide  other  millions  were  hatched  that  went  out  on  the 
next  high  tide,  and  thus  for  six  or  eight  days  the  turtle  hatch- 
ing business  continued. 

It  was  near  this  place  that  the  great  Gail  Borden  of  Fort 
Bend  County,  Texas,  before  he  had  made  himself  famous  as 
the  inventor  of  condensed  milk,  established  his  turtle  can- 
ning factory,  that  failed  to  pan  dividends  from  the  fact  that 
the  turtles  only  came  a  few  days  in  the  year. 

I  have  but  one  more  fish  story  that  I  will  tell,  and  that 
will  end  it,  not  but  that  I  could  fill  a  book  bigger  than  this 
will  be  all  relating  to  fish.  It  will  be  located  between  the  sur- 
face and  three  hundred  or  a  thousand  feet  in  the  deep  of  the 


FISH,  SNAKE  AND  OTHER  STORIES.  255 

sea — live  fish  of  all  sizes  and  colors  in  their  native  state, 
viewed  from  a  glass-bottomed  boat  near  the  Catalina  Islands 
in  the  Pacific  Ocean  off  the  California  coast,  which  no  one  will 
view  but  to  ever  afterwards  think  of  with  surprise,  ^wonder 
and  delight. 

The  man  of  brains  and  level-headedness  who  will  go  there 
and  see  that  sight  will  come  away  with  more  to  think  of  and 
about  than  any  one  other  sight  he  might  see  in  a  generation 
of  time.  To  my  reader  I  will  say,  Do  not  go  on  a  boat  where 
there  is  a  babbling  crowd  of  girls,  boys  and  women  who  must 
talk,  but  pick  your  crowd  or  charter  a  boat  and  go  by  your- 
self with  pusher  and  guide.  The  man  of  observation  and 
brains  will  be  so  absorbed  by  what  his  guide  will  tell  that  he 
will  be  very  apt  to  use  curse  words  if  women  and  children 
from  their  incessant  babbling  keep  him  from  hearing  the  story 
of  that  peculiar  fish  that  he  sees  down  in  the  deep,  that  he 
knows  no  other  man  could  ever  hook,  and  if  he  hooked  he 
would  not  know  how  to  unhook,  but  would  be  very  like  the 
man  who  caught  a  bear  and  who  appealed  to  his  neighbors 
to  come  and  help  him  let  loose. 

I  have  been  high  up  in  the  air  ballooning  and  I  have  been 
at  great  depths  in  mines  and  in  many  peculiar  conditions  and 
positions  viewing  the  world  from  high  mountain  tops,  etc.,  but 
never  before  have  I  felt  such  peculiar  unrealistic  conditions 
and  feelings  as  I  did  looking  downwards  through  this  glass- 
bottomed  boat  for  hundreds  and  hundreds  of  feet  as  we  floated 
over  mountain  peaks  and  across  great  chasms,  as  one  might 
float  over  the  Rocky  mountains  in  a  balloon  and  look  down- 
wards. So  transparent  is  the  water  that  at  times  you  can 
see  six  or  eight  hundred  feet  to  the  bottom  as  easily  as  you  can 
see  only  a  few  in  broad  daylight.  Not  until  you  have  seen 
this  sight  will  you  become  a  past  master  in  the  art  of  telling 
fish  truths. 

Now  as  to  snakes.    I  was  once  running  a  line  through  the 


256  FISH,  SNAKE  AND  OTHER  STORIES. 

San  Jacinto  swamps  in  Texas  where  the  switch  cane  was  some 
taller  than  my  head,  and  here  and  there  mammoth  oak  trees 
grew.  The  line  passed  through  a  swampy  country,  with  every 
now  and  then  a  bayou  from  six  to  ten  feet  wide  and  twenty 
or  thirty  feet  deep,  the  surface  of  the  water  coming  near  to 
that  of  the  land.  My  eye  was  fixed  on  the  object  my  com- 
pass had  directed,  and  using  the  Jacob  staff  as  a  parter  of  the 
hard  switch  cane  which  I  commenced  going  through,  my  com- 
pass under  my  arm,  old  surveyor  fashion,  my  chain  man  close- 
in  the  rear,  I  came  to  one  of  these  little  bayous,  in  the  middle 
of  which  and  filling  about  one-half  of  the  water  space,  lay 
what  I  supposed  to  be  an  old  log.  Not  looking  at  it  carefully 
1  made  a  step,  and  in  half  a  second  more  of  time  my  feet  would 
have  been  on  the  back  of  an  alligator,  that  as  I  remember  now 
from  first  sight  was  several  times  longer  than  the  longest  fence 
rail  I  ever  saw  and  about  the  size  of  a  large  saw-log.  In  an 
instant,  on  seeing  me  its  head  and  tail  were  in  the  air.  No 
man  should  ask  why  I  so  early  had  grey  hair. 

Previous  to  this  experience,  myself  and  brother,  who  were 
strangers  in  that  part  of  Texas  and  were  on  the  lookout  for 
a  good  country  to  settle  in,  concluded  to  camp  at  Hodges  Bend 
in  Fort  Bend  County — this  was  only  a  few  weeks  before  our 
taking  the  railroad  tie  contract  referred  to  elsewhere.  We 
staked  our  West  Texas  bronchos,  who  had  never  heard,  seen 
or  thought  of  an  alligator,  much  less  one  thousand  of  them, 
on  the  prairie  while  we  fixed  ourselves  to  have  a  good  sleep, 
barring  the  mosquitoes,  under  the  wide  spreading  limbs  of 
the  majestic  live  oaks  that  lined  the  lake.  Fortunately  we 
had  thrown  our  saddles  down  on  the  ground  under  a  limb, 
which  we  reached  by  springing  at  a  moment  of  great  peril. 

We  made  our  coffee  and  broiled  our  bacon  and  had  eaten 
our  supper,  in  fact  had  made  our  beds  down  when  we  heard  a 
noise  that  was  somewhat  of  a  mixture  between  the  bellowing 
of  a  mad  bull,  the  lowing  of  a  stampede  of  wild  Texas  steers. 


FISH,  SNAKE  AND  OTHER  STORIES.  257 

the  roaring  of  a  lion  and  the  growling  of  a  hyena,  all  com- 
bined in  one.  We  never  had  heard  before  that  an  alligator 
was  capable  of  making  any  sort  of  a  noise,  in  fact  we  had 
heard  very  little  about  alligators  and  knew  next  to  nothing 
about  them.  We  were  quickly  educated  and  were  wonderfully 
wise  before  the  next  morning.  In  less  time  than  it  takes  to  tell 
it  we  were  up  in  that  live  oak  tree,  springing  from  the  ground 
to  the  limb,  which  we  reached,  and  if  there  were  fifty  there 
were  five  hundred  alligators  rolling  over  one  another  to  get 
the  bread  and  bacon  that  we  had,  and  when  they  quit  the 
ground  and  went  back  to  the  water  there  was  so  little  left 
of  our  bridles  and  saddles,  and  nothing  at  all  of  our  blankets, 
that  we  were  happy  to  have  anything  of  ourselves  left.  Our 
saddle-bags  and  contents  were  all  riddled.  We  went  to  Hous- 
ton, a  distance  of  twenty  miles  or  more,  across  a  trackless 
prairie,  never  daring  to  tell  our  alligator  experience  to  any  one. 

A  few  years  back  I  was  in  the  smoking  department  of  a 
sleeper  going  westward  over  the  "Sunset  Route"  between  New 
Orleans  and  Bur  wick's  Bay,  now  Morgan  City,  La.  There 
were  several  gentlemen  present  and  I  never  have  been  back- 
ward in  coming  forward  in  any  sort  of  a  congregation  o>f  men. 
I  asked  if  there  was  any  man  present  who  could  remember 
when  this  road  was  built,  and  there  was  none.  Taking  them 
all  in.  as  being  under  thirty-five,  I  told  them  that  I  was  going 
to  tell  them  a  truth  in  the  way  of  what  might  be  termed  a 
snake,  fish  or  alligator  story. 

In  1857  when  this  road  was  built  by  the  Harris  Morgan 
Company  to  shorten  their  line  between  New  Orleans  and  Gal- 
veston — by  four  hundred  miles — I  was  on  the  first  train  that 
passed  over  it  with  passengers,  in  charge  of  the  Express  Com- 
pany's safe."  At  places  on  the  road  where  the  filling  had  to  be 
brought  a  long  distance  there  were  anywhere  from  one  to  a 
thousand  alligators  for  each  railway  tie.  and  it  frequently 
required  two  engines  to  take  a  train  of  twelve  cars  through 
on  this  level  road,  the  cow  catcher  on  the  front  engine  being 


258  FISH,  SNAKE  AND  OTHER  STORIES. 

so  loaded  down  as  to  all  but  scrape  the  rails.  The  alligators 
came  from  the  swamps  on  both  sides  to  sun  themselves  on 
the  track  and  I  have  seen  them  rolled  off  on  both  sides  of  the 
train  passing,  as  many  as  five  hundred  or  ten  thousand  on 
each  side  of  the  road  twice  a  day  in  a  distance  of  twenty  miles. 

No  headlight  on  the  front  of  an  ordinary  bicycle  could 
shine  as  did  the  eyes  of  the  people  in  that  smoker,  looking  at 
each  other  as  well  as  at  me,  when  a  gentleman  said: 

"Yes,  sir,  I  believe  it.  My  father  was  a  locomotive  engi- 
neer who  ran  on  this  road  at  that  time  and  he  told  me  as  much." 

It  was  suggested  to  the  gentleman  that  it  was  his  turn  to 
produce,  but  he  happened  to  be  one  of  that  sort  that  does  not 
believe  in  paying  for  truths. 

When  leather  became  scarce  and  it  was  found  that  alligator 
hides  were  valuable,  the  hunter  and  the  trapper  pf  the  North 
and  West  soon  played  havoc  with  the  alligators  from  the 
Rio  Grande  and  up  all  around  the  Gulf  Coast,  and  today  it 
would  be  no  easy  matter  to  see  one  though  you  spent  weeks 
trying.  Like  the  buffalo  and  the  sturgeon  and  other  disap- 
pearances that  I  have  referred  to  in  the  past,  the  alligator  is  a 
back  number — once  was,  is  not  now,  never  will  be  again,  and 
nobody  is  going  to  cry  because  they  will  not  reappear. 

That  great  American  hunter  arid  trapper  as  well  as  guide 
and  scout  has  disappeared  fro  mall  but  the  memory  of  old 
timers  like  myself,  and  where  they  have  gone  there  is  none 
to  answer  back.  The  beaver,  the  bear,  the  otter  and  the  wolf, 
the  bison  and  the  buffalo,  the  elk  and  the  deer,  the  antelope 
and  the  mountain  sheep  have  all  disappeared  in  the  last  few 
years  of  my  recollection,  and  now  finally  and  at  last  their 
enemy  the  trapper,  the  hunter  and  the  scout,  has  disappeared 
also  and  who  has  ever  read  that  matchless  poem : 

"Oh  why  should  the  spirit  of  mortal  be  proud?" 
but  that  is  reminded  of  the  past  and  ages  past,  that 

"The  thoughts  that  we  are  thinking  our  fathers  did  think, 

From  the  death  that  we  are  shrinking  our  fathers  have  shrunk." 


FISH,  SNAKE  AND   OTHER  STORIES.  259 

Reader,  if  you  have  never  read  this  poem  ask  your  nearest 
editor  to  republish  it  that  others  besides  yourself  may  be  most 
nobly  impressed. 

Many  an  old  man  have  I  asked,  "Are  there  many  rattle- 
snakes in  this  country  now?"  who  would  reply,  "No,  I  have 
not  seen  one  for  years.  I  do  not  know  what  became  of  them." 

The  old  trapper,  scout,  guide  and  hunter  could  tell  you 
and  you  may  yet  see  marks  of  it  in  the  curio  stores.  When 
I  travel  in  that  part  of  our  country  that  in  the  past  was  noted 
for  its  skunks,  and  can  hear  of  none  having  been  seen  or  smelt 
in  the  past  several  or  many  years,  I  know  that  the  trapper  has 
been  there.  Hunt  as  I  may  in  the  few  remaining  wooded  belts 
in  my  native  State  for  my  old  friend,  the  ring  tailed  coon,  the 
black  or  fox  squirrel,  and  I  will  find  none,  for  the  trapper  has 
been  there  and  has  done  his  good  work.  Go  to  those  forests 
where  but  a  few  years  ago  wild  turkeys  by  the  thousands 
roosted,  and  more  from  because  his  feathers  were  valuable 
than  all  else,  no  wild  turkey  is  to  be  found,  the  trapper  has 
been  there. 

Some  years  ago  I  was  a  guest  at  a  Governor's  mansion  in 
Mexico,  where  were  congregated  many  high  state  officials, 
who  wore  badges  of  high  degrees,  as  I  did,  and  wishing  not 
only  to  sound  the  intelligence  and  the  beliefs  of  the  people,  I 
asked  if  the  burro,  the  same  beast  of  burden  that  our  Savior 
rode,  was  a  native  of  Mexico,  and  all  with  one  voice  seemed  to 
say  "Yes,"  and  "Is  it  so  that  what  is  known  in  Texas  as  the 
mustang  pony  was  a  native  of  this  land?"  And  as  with  one 
voice  they  said  ditto,  but  not  one  could  reply  to  the  question, 
"What  bird  of  the  greatest  notoriety  was  a  native  of  this 
country?" 

Some  said  one,  some  said  another,  when  in  fact  the  wild 
turkey  is  a  native  of  Mexico  and  was  driven  North  by  the 
Spanish  invasion,  and  it  is  related  that  the  Indian  inhabitants 
and  natives  tell  that  the  wild  turkey  was  a  new  bird  in  the  New 


26O  FISH,   SNAKE  AND   OTHER  STORIES. 

England  regions  only  a  few  years  previous  to  the  landing  of 
the  Mayflower  at  Plymouth  Rock. 

The  burro  was  imported  into  Mexico  by  the  Spaniards,  as 
was  the  horse,  and  as  were  they  both  to  all  lands  the  Spanish 
ever  invaded  and  conquered,  and  no  four-footed  animal  of  the 
buffalo  sort  was  found  west  of  the  Rio  Grande.  The  deer 
was  of  a  diminutive  size  there,  as  was  the  elk  and  the  ante- 
lope, as  compared  with  the  antelope  of  the  northern  Rocky 
Mountain  plains.  The  snakes  in  that  country  were,  in  times 
beyond  recall,  something  fearful  and  terrible  to  behold  or 
encounter.  They  have  been  exterminated  by  the  Mexican 
trapper;  while  the  birds  noted  for  their  plumage  and  none 
for  their  song  have  been  slaughtered  to  decorate  the  bonnets 
of  our  fair  sex,  who  thus  wear  evidence  of  murder,  and  which 
custom  is  fast  disappearing. 

The  worst  snake  story  that  I  can  give  a  personal  experience 
of  I  will  relate,  and  then  another,  and  we  will  turn  to  bears. 

I  was  hunting  for  quail  in  a  rocky  and  hilly  country  in 
company  with  a  few  friends.  On  passing  near  by  a  laige 
bowlder  "a  rattlesnake  sprang  at  me  and  fastened  his  fangs  in 
my  coat-tail,  seeing  which  I  flew  screaming,  the  snake  hold- 
ing on.  I  looked  around  and  saw  him  streaming  out  to  the 
rear,  a  distance  that  to  my  eye  measured  somewhere  in  the 
neighborhood  of  fifteen  hundred  feet.  I  ran  out  of  my  coat 
and,  arming  myself  with  my  gun,  went  back  to  kill  a  fifteen- 
inch  rattlesnake  that  had  but  two  rattlers  on  his  tail. 

The  largest  rattlesnake  to  be  found  anywhere  in  the  United 
States  that  I  have  knowledge  of  was  in  the  lower  Rio  Grande 
River  country  in  Texas  and  Mexico.  They  came  from  the 
Colorado  country  floating  down  with  the  springtime  freshets 
on  logs  and  driftwood,  and  when  striking  salt  water  got  back 
to  land,  and  true  to  the  laws  of  nature  they  were  seldom  found 
crawling  in  any  other  direction  than  northward.  The  largest 


FISH,  SNAKE  AND  OTHER  STORIES.  26l 

I  ever  saw  measured  fourteen  inches  in  circumference  and 
eight  feet  nine  inches  long,  having  thirty-two  rattles. 

The  rattlesnake  that  divides  home  with  the  owl  and  the 
prairie  dog  in  the  northwest  Texas  plains  is  a  small  affair 
but  is  a  fighter  and,  next  to  the  gila  monster,  the  most  poison- 
ous of  all  snake  tribes  found  in  the  Western  countries.  I  am 
told  that  they,  as  well  as  the  prairie  dog,  have  about  all  dis- 
appeared, their  hides  being  tanned. 

There  is  a  snake  in  Texas  called  the  coach  whip  that  lives 
in  the  ground  in  the  prairie  country.  You  may  sneak  up  on 
him  with  a  club  to  hit  his  head,  and  before  the  club  reaches 
the  ground  he  is  ten  feet  away,  so  quick  is  he  in  his  actions. 
They  and  the  bird  of  paradise  go  together,  why  I  cannot  tell. 
I  have  seen  a  snake  of  this  sort  cross  the  road  a  few  rods  ahead 
of  my  horse,  one  or  more  of  the  birds  o>f  paradise  following 
like  a  streak,  and  from  their  peculiar  drumming  sound  and 
the  throwing  out  of  their  feathers  and  the  raising  of  their 
tails  would  scare  any  horse  or  living  mortal  on  earth  out  of 
their  wits,  and  in  an  instant  they  were  gone.  It  was  all  done 
so  quickly  one  could  not  realize  what  had  occurred. 

From  an  early  age  I  was  my  father's  "runner"  or  errand 
boy,  taking  medicine  to  his  patients  for  miles  around.  It  com- 
menced at  an  age  when  I  was  barely  old  enough  to  follow  a 
blazed  trail  through  the  dark  forest  that  surrounded  our  home 
in  all  directions,  and,  rain,  snow  or  sunshine,  the  sick  had  to 
be  attended  to,  and  I  rather  liked  it,  for  in  this  way  I  received 
many  tips  in  the  way  of  big  red  apples,  pieces  of  pie,  mostly 
mince,  "made  last  winter  at  hog-killing  time,"  doughnuts  and 
whatever  else  the  good  woman  I  came  in  contact  with  thought 
a  boy  was  most  apt  to  like. 

I  was  on  to  my  job  better  even  than  many  a  Pullman  car 
porter,  hotel  bellboy  or  waiter  is  up  to  this  date  on  to  his, 
equally  as  good  anyway  to  the  best  of  them. 

One  evening  when  the  sun  was  barely  one  hour  high  I 


262  PISH,   SNAKE  AND   OTHER  STORIES. 

was  dispatched  with  quite  a  number  of  little  powders  done  up 
in  white  paper  with  a  string  tied  around  them  to  a  neighbor 
living  more  than  a  mile  away,  the  greater  distance  through 
a  thick  forest.  About  half  way  through  this  forest  a  large 
black  walnut  tree  had  been  felled  and  the  butt  cut  sawed  oft" 
and  rolled  a  few  feet  beyond  its  cut.  By  this  tree  my  trail 
went,  and  it  was  here  that  I  got  my  first  lessons  in  scouting. 
Passing  by  the  end  of  the  log,  possibly  whistling  boy  fashion, 
I  encountered  a  good-sized  black  bear,  which  was  as  surprised 
as  I  was.  He  was  standing  in  the  trail,  but  raised  on  his 
hind  feet,  "Adam  Zad"  fashion.  I  was  but  a  few  feet  from 
him,  but  I  did  not  take  time  to  look  at  his  teeth  and  thereby 
judge  of  his  age  or  accurately  measure  the  distance.  I  whirled 
homeward  and  forgot  the  powders  in  my  hand  and  they  were 
scattered. 

I  do  not  remember  climbing  the  fence.  When  I  came  to 
I  was  panting  "Bear!  Bear!"  all  that  I  could  say  until  I  got 
a  fresh  supply  of  wind.  Old  dad  was  a  cruel  old  Virginian 
master  who  had  no  faith  in  what  boys  might  say,  but  was 
always  ready  to  use  the  strap,  generally  a  hickory  gad  about 
four  feet  long.  He  was  a  man  of  his  word  on  this  score  as 
well  as  others,  and  saying,  "I'll  show  you  what  a  Bear  is!" 
he  commenced  to  apply  his  gad,  and  I  broke  loose  and  he  after 
me  in  the  direction  of  the  bear.  He  went  to  the  fence  of  the 
outer  field  and  I  hollered  to  him.,  "Come  on,"  and  he  came, 
and  it  required  a  little  manoeuvering  on  my  part  to  get  around 
to  his  rear  while  his  head  was  yet  turned  in  the  direction  1 
wanted  him  to  go.  This  I  did  by  jumping  behind  a  big  maple 
tree.  With  that  peculiar  grunt  that  the  old  man  had  when 
he  was  stirred  up  or  mad  at  a  boy,  he  came  to  the  log  and  I 
was  a  close  observer  of  what  was  going  to  take  place,  fearing 
that  my  interviewer,  the  bear,  had  gone  away. 

Dad  passed  the  log  and  had  but  fairly  done  so  when  up 
went  a  scream,  the  old  man  whirled  and  I  flew  if  ever  a  boy 


FISH,  SNAKE  AND  OTHER  STORIES.  263 

did  fly.  Those  people  did  without  their  medicine  that  night, 
and  perhaps  would  have  done  better  had  they  never  received  it. 
I  never  got  that  thrashing  and  I  knew  better  than  to  tell  any 
one  else  just  then,  as  dad  told  me  to  let  it  be  a  closed  incident, 
and  he  never  told  anybody.  I  told  our  hired  man,  who  from 
my  earliest  infancy  placed  great  confidence  in  me,  for  I  never 
repeated  any  thing  they  told  me  about  that  was  going  on  in 
the  neighborhood,  unlike  my  other  two  brothers,  who  were 
blabs  from  'way  back. 

I  was  perhaps  the  best  informed  lad  in  that  country  about ; 
what  I  did  not  know  as  to  the  doings  and  happenings  of  all 
sorts  and  characters  would  not  have  made  an  A-B-C  primer 
and  was  not  worth  knowing.  My  mother  was  not  much  of  a 
gossip,  but  yet  we  had  some  good  ones  in  the  neighborhood, 
and  I  contrived  ahvays  to  be  near  w7here  mother  and  they  were 
after  the  dishes  were  washed  up,  and  I  nearly  always  had 
verified  the  stories  I  had  heard  previously  out  in  the  barnyard 
or  hoeing  corn  or  piling  wood. 

I  was  a  grown-up  young  man  and  living  in  Southern 
Texas  when  I  had  my  next  bear  experience.  I  had  read  Davy 
Crockett  when  a  boy  and  imagined  that  I  never  would  be  a 
bear  hunter.  I  had  heard  many  Indian  stories  and  had  read  a 
few,  and,  strange  as  it  may  appear  to  some,  a  natural  born  cow- 
ard as  I  was  from  my  earliest  recollections,  I  wanted  to  see  an 
Indian  on  his  native  heath  in  battle  array;  and  I  did  meet 
them,  but  I*  never  read  or  heard  told  an  acount  of  an  Indian 
fight  that  was  anything  like  the  ones  that  I  have  experienced. 
Perhaps  the  difference  was  that  my  Indians  were  on  horse- 
back and  the  other  fellow's  Indians  were  afoot,  and  that  my 
Indians  never  got  behind  a  tree  to  do  their  fighting  in  the  day- 
time though  they  might  crawl  with  a  sage  brush  "top-knot" 
to  get  between  me  and  my  horse.  The  devils  could  do  it  only 
once,  however,  for  after  that  my  hind-sights  worked  as  well 


264  FISH,   SNAKE  AND   OTHER  STORIES. 

as  my  front  ones,  and  when  in  an  Indian  country  I  was  look-, 
ing  all  around  at  the  same  time. 

The  wolf  stories  told  by  the  old  grandmothers  of  the  neigh- 
borhood, who  made  our  home  theirs  alternately  in  the  winter 
time,  so  scared  me  that  I  was  afraid  to  go>  in  the  dark  room 
upstairs  after  the  ladder  had  been  let  down — which  signified 
thlat  it  was  the  hour  for  the  boys  to  go  to  bed  in  the  loft. 
There  were  wolves  in  those  days  and  of  the  worst  sort  in 
Michigan ;  I  saw  some  dead  as  well  as  live  ones  before  leav- 
ing there. 

Notwithstanding  this  cowardice,  I  was  classed  as  one  of 
the  best  coon  hunters  and  killers  in  the  "bend  of  the  river," 
and  at  an  age  when  I  had  to  get  on  a  chair  to  load  the  long- 
stocked  Virginia  rifle.  I  could  save  the  meat  of  a  squirrel  by 
shooting  his  head  off,  though  he  was  in  the  tallest  tree.  The 
ground  hogs  I  killed  with  that  rifle  were  past  numbering. 

With  a  party  of  young  men,  who  promised  to  be  tetter 
huntsmen  than  they  were,  with  a  pack  oi  hounds  and  a  large 
number  of  other  breeds  of  dogs,  we  started  out  for  a  bear  hunt 
in  the  Brazos  bottoms  lying  off  to  the  west  of  where  Pittsfield 
was  then  located.  We  were  not  long  in  starting  a  bear  and 
killing  him.  Not  one  of  us  had  ever  had  experience  in  skin- 
ning a  bear.  Skinning  a  hog  would  be  easier  than  a  bear.  We 
went  further  on  and  made  our  camp  and,  tying  up  our  dogs, 
we  started  out  with  a  few  coon  dogs  to  catch  opossums,  and 
got  badly  lost  and  tangeld  up  in  the  woods,  cane-brakes, 
sloughs,  swamps,  etc. 

After  having  spent  the  night  rambling  around  our  dogs 
ran  into  a  bunch  of  Mexican  hogs,  otherwise  known  as  the 
peccary,  of  which  we  had  heard  and  well  knew  that  if  we 
crippled  one  we  had  to  save  ourselves  by  climbing  a  tree,  and 
if  we  failed  to  take  our  guns  with  us  we  would  be  starved 
to  death  there,  as  many  a  hunter  had  been.  Fortunately  for 
us  it  was  good  daylight  and  we  saw  the  situation  and  got  our 


FISH,   SNAKE  AND  OTHER  STORIES.  265 

guns  and  ammunition,  and  more  fortunately  still  there  were 
only  sixteen  in  the  pack,  the  last  of  which  we  killed  in  short 
order.  Years  afterwards  I  learned  that  this  was  the  last  drove 
ever  seen  in  that  "bend  of  the  river."  We  killed  a  few  bears 
and  then  went  home  all  voting  that  we  would  never  go  bear 
hunting  again,  and  I  never  did.  I  ran  upon  several  afterwards 
that  I  had  not  lost  and  was  not  hunting. 

My  next  bear  experience  wras  when  scouting  with  a,  party 
of  two  others  southeast  of  the  Ogon  Mountains  in  New  Mexico 
about  twenty-five  miles  east  of  Los  Vegas  and  in  a  very  dan- 
gerous hostile  Indian  country.  We  were  cooking  our  bacon 
and  making  our  coffee  in  a  concealed  place,  smudging  our 
fires.  Our  horses  were  grazing  close  by,  bridles  hanging  on 
the  saddle  pommels;  the  girths  had  been  loosened  and  the 
saddles  set  back  to  rest  their  withers,  an  old  Ranger's  way  of 
treating  his  horse  whenever  any  sort  of  an  opportunity  would 
permit. 

Bill  Bowen  was  on  guard,  while  Elam  and  I  were  doing  the 
cooking  act.  Bill  stammered,  and  when  a  little  excited  stam- 
mered still  more,  and  when  badly  excited  beat  the  Jews.  We 
heard  him  making  a  noise  and  trying  to  say  "Bear!  bear!" 
He  came  running  with  a  map  of  scare  painted  on  his  face  that 
was  so  terrible  to  behold  that  I  believe  it  would  have  fright- 
ened a  regiment  of  wildcats.  We  looked  in  the  direction 
whence  the  noise  came  and  we  all  sprang  to  our  horses,  leav- 
ing our  guns,  cook  pots  and  all  and  not  taking  time  to  "cinch" 
the  saddles  on  our  horses  at  the  sight  o<f  the  ferocious  animal 
that  by  this  time  was  close  by,  not  fifty  yards  away,  and  our 
demoralization  may  be  judged  from  the  way  the  horses  ran 
and  from  the  actual  description  given  by  the  other  two  scouts, 
who  like  myself  had  never  before  seen  a  grizzly  bear,  except 
as  pictured  in  our  geography  and  as  printed  on  the  label  which 
was  pasted  on  the  bottle  of  hair  oil  we  youngsters  used  to 


266  FISH,,  SNAKE  AND  OTHER  STORIES. 

grease  our  pates  with  and  prized  more  highly  when  perfumed 
with  the  oil  of  cinnamon  or  burgundy. 

First  impressions,  as  I  have  often  said,  are  always  the  best 
and  it  is  well  for  us  that  we  act  upon  them.  The  first  glimpse 
that  I  got  of  that  bear  made  him  somewhere  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  thirty-five  or  forty  feet  high  and  eighty  feet  long  with 
a  head  and  mouth  big  enough  to  have  taken  in  two  of  us  at 
a  time.  The  brute  was  detained  in  investigating  and  shaking 
up  our  camp  equipments  left  behind,  and  in  this  way  we  got  a 
few  hundred  yards  the  start  of  him  but  had  not  gained  time 
enough  to  bridle  our  horses  or  settle  our  saddles  in  a  proper 
position.  Horses  never  ran  faster,  and,  though  he  looked  to 
be  only  ambling  along  ate  ase,  it  seemed  as  though  or  many 
miles  and  more  than  a  two  hours'  run  we  had  gained  but  little 
on  him,  rather  the  count  was  in  his  favor  when  he  gave  up 
the  chase,  and  we  did  not  return  to  it  but  to  our  camp  and 
headquarters,  where  we  turned  in  our  report  verbally  and 
asked  for  reinforcements  to  regain  our  lost  guns  and  camp 
equipments,  and  well  it  was  that  our  general  had  been  drink- 
ing a  superior  quality  of  whisky  and  was  therefore  in  a  good 
mood,  for  he  told  us  to  take  as  many  volunteers  as  we  wished, 
for,  had  we  started  out  there  with  a  less  number  than  the 
eighty  who  followed  us,  the  Muscalero  Apaches,  who  were 
lying  in  wait  for  us,  would  have  ended  our  existence. 

The  red  devils  were  in  ambush,  but  by  some  Divine  guid- 
ance we  lost  the  regular  trail  and  came  in  between  them  and 
the  mountains,  and  but  for  our  having  the  advantage  in  the 
lay  of  the  land  and  they  only  having  bows  and  arrows,  we 
might  not  have  got  away  with  so  many  of  them,  sending  them 
to  their  happy  hunting-grounds,  where  all  good  Indians  are, 
and  they  might  have  interfered  with  the  circulation  of  the 
blood  of  no  few  of  us.  Several  of  our  horses  were  hit  with 
their  arrows.  They  got  over  it  soon  and  we  returned  to  camp 
.with  the  scalps  of  a  few  of  the  braves  together  with  their 


I*  f'W'i ;  j  f-s*^  ,  -^         wj 

H^fl^^W^^  V, 

.^v  1     y     \  .T>r  -  ^(r'    *£jlK-  iftft* < 


FISH,   SNAKE  AND   OTHER  STORIES.  267 

trappings.  We  also  returned  with  our  guns  and  what  of  the 
camp  outfit  was  left,  for  the  brute  returned  and  demolished 
everything,  but  did  not  touch  the  three  guns  and  the  two  six- 
shooters  that  were  left  lying  on  the  ground. 

The  track  this  bear  made  showed  that  his  right  fore  paw 
had  three  claws  cut  off  and  two  of  his  left  hind  foot  claws  also 
showed  that  he  had  been  in  a  trap  in  his  day  and  time.  This 
bear  measured  fourteen  feet  from  tip  to  the  left  hind  paw. 
He  was  killed  fourteen  years  after  above  interview,  by  a  party 
of  surveyors  of  the  Atchison,  Topeka,  Santa  Fe,  and  I  trav- 
eled nearly  fifteen  hundred  miles  to  offer  one  thousand  dollars 
lor  that  pelt.  It  was  the  property  of  an  Englishman  who  gave 
eighteen  hundred  dollars  for  it  and  who  gave  me  a  photograph 
for  nothing. 

The  history  of  this  animal  as  orally  given  by  the  Indians 
and  Mexicans  of  that  country  was  one  of  great  length,  not 
only  of  the  story,  but  in  the  period  of  time  that  it  covered. 
This  animal  had  depopulated  the  ranch  that  had  been  estab- 
lished at  the  base  of  this  mountain  and  near  where  we  camped 
at  the  foot  of  the  pass  between  the  Oregon  and  the  Dog 
Mountains,  the  ruins  of  which  are  still  there.  His  range  was 
from  the  Guadalupe  Mountains  in  Texas  to  the  Socoro  Moun- 
tains in  New  Mexico.  As  near  as  could  be  ascertained,  he  was 
more  than  one  hundred  years  old  and  had  killed  more  than 
three  hundred  Mexicans  and  frontiersmen.  I  was  told  that 
though  he  would  kill  a  Mexican,  he  would  not  eat  him,  because 
of  the  red  pepper  in  the  Mexican's  make-up. 

It  was  said  that  the  reason  that  the  herd  of  antelope  which 
ranged  between  the  Ogon  and  Guadalupe  Mountains  in  Texas 
to  the  Rio  Grande  River  and  Pacos  River  was  larger  and  more 
fleet  than  any  other  ever  known  of  on  the  American  continent, 
was  owing  to  this  bear  keeping  all  the  hunters  and  trappers 
away.  There  were  but  few  other  bears  in  all  this  range. 


268  FISH,  SNAKE  AND   OTHER  STORIES. 

Besides  being  a  man-eater  he  was  a  cannibal  as  respected  his 
own  race. 

A  schoolboy  once  told  me  that  the  reason  that  a  man  could 
handle  an  elephant  and  the  reason  why  a  tiger  and  a  grizzly 
bear  were  afraid  of  nothing  was  because  the  elephant's  eyes 
were  like  field-glasses  that  magnified,  \vhile  the  eyes  of  a  tiger 
were  like  the  field-glasses .  being  reversed,  making  everything 
look  small.  If  this  be  so,  it  accounts  for  my  eyes  having  been 
reversed  on  that  bear,  and  therefore  multiplied  his  height  and 
length,  but  I  lost  nothing  in  getting  away  from  his  strength. 

I  never  lost  any  bears,  so  I  have  never  gone  out  hunting 
after  any,  and  I  have  only  come  across  a  few  since  this  occur- 
rence and  I  whistled  to  keep  up  courage  and  looked  the  other 
way  in  order  that  the  bear  might  do  the  same,  and  he  did  it 
and  we  went  further  apart  instead  of  coming  closer  together. 

Years  ago  there  was  a  large  silver-tip  bear  that  weighed 
over  eleven  hundred  pounds  in  Union  Park  in  Chicago  behind 
two-inch  steel  bars  and  they  protected  again  by  a  strong  iron 
fence  six  feet  away.  Though  the  sign  was  up, 

"DO  NOT  FEED  OR  POKE  THE  BEAR," 

I  found  great  amusement  in  going  down  there  and  seeing  the 
"greenies"  from  the  country  and  the  smart  young  ladies  try- 
ing to  amuse  the  bear  by  letting  him  smell  and  amble  with  their 
umbrella  and  parasol  tips.  He  only  needed  about  half  an  inch 
of  ttye  end  of  them  between  his  teeth  to>  wrest  a  crooked  cane 
out  of  the  hand  of  the  stoutest  man  that  ever  looked  at  that 
bear,  and  I  have  been  told  that  he  had  destroyed  on  an  average 
one  hundred  dollars'  worth  of  umbrellas,  parasols  and  canes 
per  day  during  the  season  the  most  strangers  visited  the  park. 
This  bear  was  a  cunning  old  cuss,  as  all  bears  are.  He 
never  took  anything  away  from  any  one  but  that  he  put  it  in 
a  dark  room  in  the  rear  of  his  cage  that  the  next  sucker  that 


FISH,   SNAKE  AND   OTHER  STORIES.  269 

came  up  would  not  see  what  he  had  been  doing  in  the  way  of 
having  fun  for  himself  as  well  as  the  people  on  the  outside 
who  saw  the  other  fellow  lose  his  cane  or  umbrella. 

My  New  Mexico  bear  weighed  thirteen  hundred  and  eighty 
pounds  net.  I  heard  of  one  that  was  killed  in  Idaho,  near 
Jackson's  Hole,  east  of  the  Teuton  Mountains  that  weighed 
sixteen  hundred  pounds  and  he  was  a  man-killer  and  would 
have  ended  the  existence  of  the  greatest  criminal  lawyer  of 
Chicago  but  for  a  shot  fired,  after  eighty  had  been  poured  into 
him,  by  a  personal  friend  of  mine,  who  in  his  day  had  been 
a  great  scout,  guide,  trapper  and  hunter,  Dr.  Bullen,  who  died 
only  a  few  years  ago  and  who  was  offered  two  thousand  dol- 
lars for  this  bear's  skin.  Singularly  his  fore  paw  and  hind 
foot  was  marked  the  same  as  was  the  one  killed  in  New  Mex- 
ico. It  is  possible  to  locate  every  grizzly  and  silver-tip  bear 
on  the  American  continent  today,  as  it  also  is  the  buffalo.  I 
saw  four  of  the  former,  six  of  the  second  and  eighty  of  the 
latter  in  Yellowstone  Park  recently. 

Every  traveler  in  the  Yellowstone  Park  may  see  the  bear 
any  evening  about  sundown  going  to  the  hotel  after  his 
rations,  and  though  very  gentle  in  appearance,  woe  always 
befalls  the  unfortunate  fool  that  gets  between  him  and  his 
den  back  in  the  woods.  The  Government  protects  them,  as 
well  as  they  do  the  buffalo,  elk,  deer,  and  beaver.  They  are  all 
on  the  increase  and  the  order  went  forth  from  Washington 
in  1903  that  the  larger  and  older  bears  should  be  killed  and 
that  the  beaver  should  be  thinned  out. 

I  was  authorized  for  myself  and  a  few  friends  to  offer 
twelve  hundred  dollars  for  the  largest  bear  skin,  one  thousand 
each  for  the  next  three  largest,  seventy-five  apiece  for  ten 
beaver  skins  with  the  tails  and  castors  preserved,  and  fifty 
dollars  each  for  ten  of  the  largest  elk  antlers.  Some  one  else 
came  along  and  left  a  higher  bid,  for  we  never  heard  from 


27O  FISH,   SNAKE   AND   OTHER  STORIES. 

the  skinning  and  were  told  at  the  time  by  a  curio  dealer  that 
ivc  might  stand  a  better  chance  if  we  doubled  our  offer. 

I  make  these  statements  in  order  that  men  of  my  age  may 
the  more  properly  realize  the  wonderful  changes  that  have 
taken  place  in  our  day.  From  where  I  am  now  sitting  writing 
this  the  sun  was  darkened  for  three  days  from  the  wild  pigeons 
migrating  south,  the  limbs  of  great  forest  trees  we're  broken 
down  by  their  weight — they  were  by  the  millions  and  millions. 
Where  came  they  from?  Where  have  they  gone?  Lived 
there  an  age  of  people  on  earth  that  has  seen  such  wondrous 
changes  as  I  and  my  age  have  seen?  Has  it  been  for  the 
best?  Let  time  answer. 

I  have  seen  when  a  boy  more  than  one  hundred  Indian 
canoes  drawn  out  of  the  river  on  the  flat  here  at  my  feet. 
They  came  here  loaded  with  beaver,  otter,  fox  and  lynx  fur 
(muskrats  and  coons  were  then  considered  valueless)  that 
were  sold  by  the  Indians  who  had  brought  them  here  from 
up  the  St.  Jo  River  and  its  tributaries.  They  were  paid  for  in 
Spanish  quarter  and  half  dollars  or  English  shillings,  red 
beads,  trinkets  and  whisky.  An  Ai  beaver  skin  would  bring 
about  two  dollars  and  an  otter  one  dollar.  Today  they  would 
bring  from  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  dollars  to  three  hun- 
dred each. 

The  fur  bought  here  from  the  Indians  was  shipped  by 
sailing  canoes  to  John  Jacob  Astor's  principal  fur  depot  located 
on  Mackinac  Island,  and  from  which  the  furs  collected  on  the 
Columbia  River  in  the  West  and  as  far  north  as  his  more  than 
three  thousand  hunters,  trappers  and  scouts  operated,  were 
shipped,  and  the  curious  may  see  today  in  the  old  Astor  House, 
now  one  of  the  leading  hotels  on  Mackinac  Island,  not  only 
the  old  storehouse  but  the  books  and  correspondence  and  bank 
checks  that-  to  look  over  carries  one  back  into  the  history  of 
the  past  as  nothing  else  will. 

In  the  past  few  years  I  have  paid  considerable  attention 


PISH,  SNAKE  AND  OTHER  STORIES.  27! 

to  the  collection  of  curios  and  wonders  of  the  world,  art,  etc., 
in  the  museums  of  our  land,  notably  the  Field  Columbian 
Museum  in  Chicago.  As  now  conducted  and  managed  (by  a 
directory  of  college  professors  with  all  sorts  of  letters  after 
their  names  signifying  all  sorts  of  degrees  bestowed  on  them), 
all  of  these  museums  are  little  better  than  dens  for  professors 
who  live  on  the  donors'  money,  just  as  do  the  missionaries  sent 
to  foreign  and  pagan  countries  by  the  contributions  made  from 
our  good  mothers,  wives  and  sisters  and  a  few  of  the  goody- 
goodies  of  the  other  sex  who  want  to  stand  in  with  the  preacher 
and  the  women  and  who  do  not  have  sense  enough  to  differ- 
entiate between  a  baboon  fight  and  a  couple  of  lusty  mules 
kicking  each  other. 

These  wise  men  and  professors  make  me  sick  every  time 
I  come  in  contact  with  them,  and  when  I  fail  to  provide  myself . 
with  smelling  salts  I  can  only  find  relief  by  the  immediate 
application  of  the  mouth  of  a  bottle  labeled  "Old  Crow"  to 
mine. 

If  Mr.  Field  of  Chicago  should  ever  take  it  into  his  head 
to  change  the  management  of  the  Field  Columbian  Museum 
in  the  City  of  Chicago  and  have  it  run  on  the  same  basis  and 
the  same  brain-like  way  that  his  world  wondrous  mercantile 
establishment  is — and  God  grant  that  he  may  before  he  dies — 
then  the  world  will  rise  up  and  call  him  blessed,  and  this  is 
no  fish  story  but  a  truth  that  will  burn  the  man  or  woman 
who  undertakes  to  assail  it. 

If  some  great  editor  like  Joe  Medill  were  to  rise  up  in 
Chicago  and,  defying  all  criticism  and  opposition  for  a  season, 
take  hold  of  this  matter  as  it  should  be  taken  hold  of,  the 
rising  generation  and  those  following  them  will  forever  embalm 
the  name  of  that  editor. 


SOME  INSECT  AND  OTHER  TRUTHS. 


While  fish,  bear  and  snake  stories  have  at  all  times  and 
will  at  all  times  to  come  be  interesting,  amusing  and  enter- 
taining, I  must  dq3art  from  the  usual  line  and  devote  at  least 
a  chapter  to  insect  truths. 

Few  men  know  what  an  "Arkansas  bee  course"  is.  An 
expression  made  use  of  very  often  when  we  want  to  compare 
the  value  of  something  to  nothing.  When  the  bees  quit  mak- 
ing honey  and  are  to  be  found  around  carcasses  or  water  pools 
the  trapper  or  hunter  collects  four  or  five  in  a  gourd,  and, 
going  off  a  distance,  turns  one  loose.  The  bee  soars  around 
and  arotmd  in  a  circle  until  he  attains  a  sufficient  altitude, 
when  it  will  strike  off  in  a  straight  direction  towards  its  home 
in  a  hollow  cypress  tree,  perhaps  five  or  six  miles  away,  and 
in  which  there  may  be  from  one  to  five  hundred  gallons  of 
honey. 

The  trapper  takes  this  course  and  follows  it  as  long  as  he 
can  see  the  bee,  blazing  his  way  on  the  trees  and  the  under- 
growth he  passes  with  his  scalping  knife.  After  going  as  far 
as  prudent  he  turns  loose  another  bee,  which  takes  the  same 
course  the  former  one  did,  and  the  trapper  runs  following  the 
course  as  it  may  fly  in  another  direction  to  another  tree  and 
if  so  the  trapper  then  has  two  bee  courses.  He,  perhaps,  may 
not  be  able  to  find  either  tree  this  season.  He  has  blazed  his 
courses,  however,  which  consist  of  two-  hacks  or  an  X  hack 
or  an  I  X  hack,  which  is  recognized  and  respected  by  all  other 
trappers.  He  returns  to  his  course  the  next  season  and  it  is 
probable  that  he  has  many  courses. 

The  bee  for  its  industry  and  great  wisdom  has  been  noted 

272 


SOME   INSECT   AND   OTHER    TRUTHS.  273 

from  all  time.  There  are  three  different  bees  that  I  have  come 
across  in  my  day.  There  is  one  that  burrows  in  the  chalk 
rock  and  lives  on  the  honey-dew  that  settles  on  the  live  oak 
and  willow  leaves  in  the  droughty  seasons  in  West  Texas 
and  Mexico.  The  largest  hive  of  which  I  have  knowledge  is 
on  the  Devil's  River  a  few  miles  above  where  the  S.  P.  Rail- 
road crosses  the  same.  It  reaches  up  a  cliff  for  nearly  one 
hundred  feet  from  fifty  to  sixty  feet  above  high  water  mark. 
The  bee  burrows  in  this  rock  and  makes  its  cell  therein,  much 
as  the  yellow  jacket  or  bumble-bee  does  on  the  level  ground. 
Its  honey  is  not  palatable  and  the  trapper  lets  that  bee  severely 
alone. 

The  bat  caves  in  the  center  of  northwest  Texas  are  one 
of  the  wonders  of  this  world  that  I  have  seen.  We  established 
niter  works  there  during  the  war.  They  are  one  of  the  "in- 
comprehensibilities" to  even  those  who  have  seen  them,  much 
less  those  who  have  never  seen  or  heard  of  them.  The 
entrance  to  the  cave  is  quite  large;  how  many  miles  back  in 
the  mountain  it  extends  no  one  knows.  In  the  first  cave  it 
is  from  one  to  three  hundred  feet  to  the  dome.  The  manure 
in  the  cave  is  from  eighty  to  one  hundred  feet  deep  and  is 
as  rich  as  any  Peruvian  guano  that  is  imported  into  the 
country  for  fertilizing  purposes. 

There  are  three  entrances  to  the  cave,  one  much  larger 
than  the  other  two  combined.  About  four  o'clock  in  the 
evening  the  bats  commence  flying  out,  and  their  noise  is  some- 
thing terrific,  like  the  approaching  of  a  tornado,  for  more 
than  a  mile  from  the  cave.  They  obscure  the  sky  from  view, 
likewise  the  moon  and  stars.  They  come  out  in  countless 
millions,  I  may  say  trillions,  and  fly  off  in  the  air  in  every 
direction.  They  go  out  this  way  every  evening  and  night 
until  ten  and  eleven  o'clock.  When  they  go  back  or  how  they 
get  in  the  cave  no  one  knows  or  can  tell.  They  hang  on  one 
another  like  bees  that  are  swarming,  and  it  was  no  uncom- 


274  SOME    INSECT    AND    OTHER   TRUTHS. 

moii  thing  to  see  in  the  cave  bodies  of  them  hanging  together 
reaching  down  fifty  or  seventy-five  feet. 

On  entering  the  cave  in  the  morning  these  pendant  domes 
of  bats  were  all  gone.  When  we  quit  work  of  an  evening, 
which  we  had  to  do,  they  would  be  hanging  there  by  the 
millions,  but  no  one  could  ever  detect  a  bat  going  in  the  cave 
entrance,  which  seemed  to  be  only  a  place  of  exit  for  them. 

The  grasshoppers  that  have  covered  bloody  Kansas  and  all 
but  depopulated  Texas  at  four  different  times  within  my  recol- 
lection, are  another  of  the  wonders  of  the  world  that  I  have 
seen.  They  come  only  with  the  north  winds  called  "northers ;" 
in  the  latter  part  of  September  or  the  first  of  October 
they  reach  the  Texas  coast,  and  if  they  were  divided  off  into 
battalions  of  a  trillion  in  each  there  would  be  countless 
trillions  of  battalions.  To  more  thoroughly  comprehend, 
imagine  that  for  three  days  and  three  nights  the  sun,  moon 
and  stars  were  obscured  from  your  vision  and  the  ground 
around  you  was  covered  from  one  to  five  inches  deep,  and 
that  every  sprig  of  green  vegetation  on  the  globe  around  had 
disappeared  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye. 

This  grasshopper  comes  with  the  wind.  His  wings  can 
keep  him  in  the  air,  but  he  cannot  fly  against  it  or  in  any 
other  direction  than  with  the  wind.  The  first  three  days  of 
the  "norther"  bring  him,  the  next  three  days'  "norther" 
— that  may  or  may  not  come  for  a  week  or  two — pick  him  up 
and  carry  ham  on.  There  was  enough  of  him  with  the  first 
"norther"  to  paste  or  cover  the  country  from  five  to  ten  inches 
deep  from  all  the  way,  away  up  north  in  Alberta  land  to  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico  and  for  a  width  of  more  than  three  hundred 
miles.  From  whence  they  came  no  man  knoweth,  but  we  do 
know  that  nothing*  but  boiling  or  cold  salt  water  will  kill 
them ;  freezing  does  not  feaze  them. 

I  have  had  half  a  dozen  for  three  years  under  a  glass, 
without  anything  to  eat,  in  a  cool,  dark  place,  and  when 


SOME   INSECT    AND   OTHER   TRUTHS.  2/5 

the  glass  was  removed  they  were  as  chipper  as  they  were  the 
day  they  came  from  whence  no  man  shall  ever  tell. 

The  grasshopper  deposits  its  eggs  in  the  ground,  just  like 
the  mammoth  sea  turtle  deposits  hers  in  the  sandy  beach,  as 
is  elsewhere  narrated,  and  it  journeys  on  southward  with  the 
next  north  wind.  Its  dumping  place  and  final  end  is  in  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico  and  the  Caribbean  Sea.  The  instant  that  it 
strikes  salt  water  it  dies.  If  high  up  he  is  carried  farther 
south  and  until  he  strikes  the  counter  current  or  trade  winds 
from  the  south,  when  he  falls  into  the  Caribbean  Sea,  while 
those  in  the  lower  strata  of  the  "norther"  drop  into  the  Gulf 
of  Mexico. 

We  have  a  report  o>f  three  ships  having  been  sunk  in  the 
Caribbean  Sea  and  in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  in  1857  from  the 
grasshoppers  alighting  and  falling  on  them.  The  steamer 
General  Rusk,  of  the  Harrison-Morgan  line  of  steamers  from 
New  Orleans,  that  plied  between  the  mouth  of  the  Rio  Grande 
River  and  New  Orleans,  loaded  with  freight  and  passengers, 
in  November,  1857,  was  saved  from  sinking  only  from  its 
having  been  but  a  few  miles  from  the  eastern  lim'it  of  the 
grasshopper  army  being  blown  south. 

The  early  warm  spring  days  would  commence  hatching 
the  grasshopper  eggs  that  were  laid  from  the  most  northern 
limits  of  Alberta  down  to  the  sea  coast  of  the  Gulf,  and  they 
would  be  carried  north  with  the  south  winds  that  prevailed 
at  that  season  of  the  year,  and  after  twenty-one  days  of  age 
they  would  be  able  to  attain  an  altitude  and  fly  back  or  be 
carried  back  to  that  country  from  whence  their  progenitors 
came  and  that  no  man  can  tell  of,  no  more  than  can  any 
man,  astrologer  or  who  not,  tell  when  they  will  come  again. 

When  I  contemplate,  for  even  a  few  moments  of  time, 
the  wondrous  creations  of  my  great  Creator,  methinks  how 
infinitely  ignorant  and  perhaps  happier  must  be  the  man  who 
knows  so  little  of  God's  creation  as  to  be  surprised  at  what  I 


276  SOME   INSECT   AND   OTHER   TRUTHS. 

may  have  related  herein  or  at  what  I  may  hereinafter  nar- 
rate, and  considering  this,  I  am  not  surprised  that  there  are 
so  many  people  on  this  earth  that  live  without  toil  only  as 
they  find  labor  in  working  fools  who  believe  only  that  which 
their  leader,  teacher,  preacher  or  politician  tells  them,  and  who 
are  like  the  goldfish  in  the  glass  globe  that  swims  around  and 
sees  all  the  globe,  and  seeing  no  other  fish,  thinks  that  he 
is  the  only  fish  in  the  globe. 

Somewhere  in  Holy  Scripture  we  are  advised  to  go  and 
take  lessons  from  the  bee  and  the  busy  ant;  and  now  for  an 
ant  truth. 

There  is  a  section  of  country  in  Texas,  about  four 
hundred  miles  in  extent  in  each  and  either  direction,  and  there 
are  two  other  similarly  sized  sections,  one  in  central  and  the 
other  in  the  most  southern  part  of  Mexico,  where  the  same 
ant  with  all  the  same  peculiarities  are  to  be  found.  They  are 
particularly  fond  of  the  leaves  of  peach  trees  and  of  willows 
and  of  all  other  leaves  containing  a  particle  of  prussic  acid 
in  their  make-up.  They  are  fond  of  the  Spanish  moss  that 
grows  on  the  great  trees  in  the  swamps  and  on  the  river 
coiurses  in  the  South.  These  ants  make  great  excavations  in 
the  ground,  carrying  the  dirt  to  the  top.  I  have  seen  several 
cavities  that  would  measure  from  eighteen  to  twenty  feet  in 
diameter  and  twenty  feet  in  depth,  coming  to  within  ten  feet 
of  the  surface,  and  frequently  over  which  grew  great  mats  of 
hackberry  trees  all  entwined  and  covered  with  mustang  grape 
vines.  Sometimes  a  live  oak  thicket  would  grow  over  the 
beds  and  in  Atascosa  and  Guadalupe  countries  in  Texas  I 
have  seen  live  oak  trees  that  would  measure  six  feet  in  diameter 
that  had  grown  on  these  beds;  the  estimated  age  of  a  tree 
of  that  size  is  nearly  eight  thousand  years. 

These  cavities  reach  out  in  every  direction  and  at  a  great 
depth  in  the  earth,  often  covering  more  than  an  acre  .of 
ground,  and  are  filled  with  rotted  peach  leaves  if  they  could 


SOME    INSECT   AND   OTHER    TRUTHS.  277 

be  had,  or  moss  or  such  other  leaves  as  would  offer,  afford- 
ing nourishment  in  the  sap  to  be  found  in  them,  then  leaving 
a  perfect  frame-work,  preserved  by  the  prussic  acid  in  the 
same  in  which  frame  work  the  larvae  or  eggs  are  laid  by 
a  queen,  just  as  the  egigs  of  a  hive  of  bees  are  laid. 

The  queen  ant  is  from  ten  to  fifteen  times  larger  than 
the  largest  overseer  ant,  and  is  generally  twice  the 'size  of 
the  cutter  or  of  the  one  that  brought  the  earth  to  the  sur- 
face. An  ant  bed  covering  an  acre  of  ground  on  a  knoll 
where  there  is  good  drainage  would  feed  from  the  country 
round  for  a  distance  of  many  miles. 

I  have  traced  an  underground  road  tunnel  which  they  had 
dug  for  six  miles.  It  would  be  three-fourth  of  an  inch  high, 
three  inches  wide,  and  never  go  under  two  feet  below  and 
never  come  within  eighteen  inches  of  the  surface,  and  was 
as  straight  in  its  course  as  any  surveyor  could  run  a  line. 
One  of  these  tunnels  went  down  below  two  never-drying 
creeks.  They  are,  when  passing  through  light  soil,  made  as 
impervious  from  above  or  below  as  any  hydraulic  cement  pipe 
could  be  made.  The  casing  would  be  only  one-fourth  of  an 
inch  or  less  in  thickness.  From  this  tunnel  side  tunnels  would 
be  sent  out  to  a  live  oak  grove,  a  mile  or  more  off  and  to  the 
right  or  left,  and  from'  those  side  tunnels  laterals  would  be 
sent  out  to  the  right  and  left  coming  up  in  the  center  of  a 
newly  planted  peachi  orchard  or  whatever  the  farmer  had 
planted  that  they  liked. 

They  would  often  make  a  road  on  the  top  of  the  ground, 
and  especially  so  over  rocky  grounds  to  a  willow  thicket,  a 
peach  orchard  or  a  clump  of  trees  that  had  Spanish  moss  in 
abundance  on  them.  This  trail,  two  inches  wide,  would  be  as 
straight  as  an  arrow ;  on  the  right  side  the  goers  on  the  left 
the  comers  passed  with  pieces  of  moss  an  inch  long  or  the 
fourth,  or  eighth  of  a  peach  leaf.  The  comers  and  goers  on 
a  trail  three  hundred  yards  long  were  so  numerous  that 


278  SOME    INSECT    AND    OTHER    TRUTHS. 

they  could  strip  a  large  peach  orchard  in  one  night.  If  this 
is  "incomprehensible"  to  you  do  not  read  further  for  I  am 
going  to  carry  you  into  such  deep  water  that  you  will  drown, 
as  I  am  not  yet  through  with  the  ant  truths,  and  there  are 
other  ants  besides  these  that  are  called  the  cutting  ants,  of 
which  I  am  going  to  tell  more. 

These,  ants  would  not  strip  a  peach  orchard  more  than 
twice  a  year,  for  they  know  that  if  they  did  they  would  not 
have  any  leaves  next  year.  Their  cunning  and  wisdom  is 
beyond  the  ken  of  man.  No  flowers  or  shrubbery  or  fruits 
could  be  grown  where  they  were,  and  they  would  seen  go  to 
any  place  where  these  things  were  planted.  They  never  work 
in  the  daytime,  excepting  in  the  fall  of  the  year,  when  it  is 
pleasant,  or  in  the  spring  of  ^the  year,  when  their  fences  need 
repairing  by  reason  of  the  freshets  and  the  washouts,  when 
they  work  both  night  and  day,  and  the  amount  that  they 
can  do  passes  the  comprehension  of  man.  An  old  man  got 
on  to  a  poison,  cyanide  of  potash,  with  which  he  poisoned  all 
of  his  family,  and  from  which  I  have  suffered  from  that  day 
to  this  with  what  the  doctors  call  tonsilitis  that  never  fails 
to  tonsil  when  I  over-exert  myself  or  from  exposure  take  cold, 
and  I  believe  that  there  are  thousands  of  others  who  suffer  as 
I  have  from  the  same  cause,  for  I  smell  the  accursed  stuff  in 
about  every  drug  store  I  go  into. 

Neither  the  water  nor  the  poison  diminished  the  number 
of  the  ants  or  protected  the  foliage  on  the  old  man's  trees.  I 
was  the  first  one  to  discover  that  these  ants  never  built  a  bed 
on  ground  that  had  any  water  anywhere  near  around  that 
was  higher. 

Our  well  was  sixty  feet  deep;  in  this  we  put  a  force 
lift  pump  driven  by  a  powerful  windmill  and  a  one-inch  hose, 
the  end  of  which  I  inserted  in  an  ant  tunnel,  and  the  water 
ran  in  there  continuously  for  three  days  and  three  nights 
before  it  overflowed  from  the  top  cavity  through  a  tunnel  that 


SOME   INSECT    AND    OTHER    TRUTHS.  2/9 

was  cut  by  the  well  diggers  many  years  before,  and  the  well 
was  filled  up  with  ants  and  the  pump  quit  pumping  and  the 
mill  quit  milling,  and  by  this  I  demonstrated  that  ants  could 
be  drowned  out  but  not  scalded  or  poisoned.  I  further  found 
that  by  forcing  sulphuric  acid  gas  in  their  tunnels  by  powerful 
blowers  no  ant  could  live  therein,  and  I  was  not  long  in 
putting  this  find  to  all  possible  financial  account,  and  had  I 
been  living  in  a  land  not  subject  to  droughts  and  dis- 
asters  in  the  way  of  tornados  and  cyclones  and  cotton  worms 
and  bowl  worms  and  corn  weevils  and  every  other  curse  God 
could  visit  on  any  country,  I  would  have  become  a  millionaire 
from  destroying  this  pest,  and  as  it  was,  I  made  a  little  but 
came  near  being  irretrievably  ruined  from  having  organized 
and  backing  up  the  Oriental  Ant  Exterminating  Company, 
with  a  view  of  going  to  South  America,  where  these  same 
ants  make  it  impossible  to>  populate  the  country  and  also  to 
Syria  and  the  Holy  Land  and  to  parts  of  Africa  where 
branches  of  this  ant  family  have  possession  of  all  the  better 
land  and  keep  the  people  in  great  want  and  poverty. 

It  is  said  that  "fortune  favors  the  brave"  and  that  "all 
things  come  to  him  who  waits."  I  always  did  like  old  General 
Braxton  Bragg  of  the  Confederate  army,  who  was  known 
from  the  day  of  the  battle  of  Buena  Vista  as  "a  little  more 
grape  and  canister,  Captain  Bragg."  I  went  on  East  and 
negotiated  with  my  friend  General  Bragg,  and  was  to  have 
paid  him  a  large  salary  per  annum  and  all  expenses  to  go 
to  Palestine  and  the  East  generally.  He  came  to  Galveston 
on  his  way  to  my  place  in  the  interior  and  took  a  rest  there 
for  a  few  days,  when  he  was  lionized  by  the  good  people 
of  that  city  and  the  ladies  in  particular. 

General  Bragg  was  one  of  the  few  real  up-and-down 
fighting,  planning,  sober  and  industrious  generals  that  there 
were  in  the  Confederate  army,  though  the  two  Johnstons  and 
General  Lee  were  world  favorites.  Yet  I  would  at  any  time 


28O  SOME    INSECT    AND    OTHER   TRUTHS. 

rather  have  trusted  the  fate  of  the  country  to  General  Bragg 
than  to  them,  as  in  my  opinion  he  had  more  statesmanship 
in  his  makeup  and  equally  as  much  of  military  acumen. 

'Bragg  told  no  one  what  his  mission  was  and  the  schemers 
and  promoters  and  moneyed  men  behind  the  Gulf,  Colorado 
and  Santa  Fe  Railroad  made  him  an  offer  to  take  charge  of 
their  Third  House  members  and  see  that  the  proper  legisla- 
tion was  had;  which  he  did  and  where  I  was  very  glad  to 
meet  him,  as  I  needed  his  services  in  matters  heretofore 
related.  In  this  way  my  ant  speculation  fell  through  as  far  as 
I  was  concerned,  saving  and  excepting  that  I  came  across  a 
man,  the  like  of  whom  I  have  always  been  hunting,  who  knew 
more  about  my  business  than  I  did  and  who  had  the  required 
amount  of  money  to  run  it,  and  I  sold  out,  and  in  this  case, 
as  in  about  all  others  where  the  man  having  the  money  had 
less  sense,  the  business  went  under. 

No  ant  ever  worked  in  the  bed  where  I  had  done  my  work, 
yet  I  know  of  where  they  returned  years  afterwards  where 
others  did  the  work.  In  this  same  country  in  which  these 
ants  are  located  there  is  another  ant,  which  I  will  call  the 
sugar  ant. 

He  works  only  by  night  and  burrows  deep  in  the  ground 
and  seems  to  pull  the  hole  in  after  him.  He  is  found  only 
where  there  are  trees  and  preferably  grape  vines,  and  is  in 
numbers  by  the  trillions;  is  between  one-half  and  three- 
fourths  of  an  inch  long,  of  a  pale  red  color,  and  neither  bites 
nor  stings.  He  is  the  best  engineer  of  all  insects  or  little 
animals  in  God's  creation,  not  excepting  man.  He  has  no  eye 
to  see  or  nose  to  smell,  but  a  brain  to  divine  and  locate — a 
power  beyond  comprehension.  Nothing  I  ever  met  in  life 
equals  this  ant's  ability  to  do  real  cussedness. 

We  had  lost  one-half  "of  three  barrels  of  sugar — the 
ordinary  old  fashioned  brown — and  could  find  no  trace  of  how. 
I  always  had  a  sweet  tooth  (being<  rocked  in  infancy  in  a 


SOME   INSECT   AND   OTHER   TRUTHS.  28l 

maple  sap  trough  had  something  to  do  with  this).  Coming 
home  one  night  from  a  coon  hunt,  I  concluded  to  go  into  the 
smoke-house  and  get  some  sugar  to  eat  with  my  corn  pome. 
I  lit  a  candle  to  see  my  way  more  clearly.  I  ran  up  against 
somewhere  from  between  twenty-two  million,  five  hundred 
and  ninety-six  thousand  and  twice  that  number  of  ants,  every 
one  of  the  little  red  devils  having  a  chunk  of  sugar  on  his 
shoulder.  In  half  a  minute's  time  the  last  one  had  gone  down 
underneath  the  ground  sills  of  the  smoke-house  and  into  their 
holes. 

Though  I  knew  ill  would  come  to  me  if  I  reported  my 
find,  yet  I  told  it  at  the  breakfast  table  and  but  that  the 
old  man  was  not  as  able  to  thrash  me  as  he  once  had  been, 
he  might  have  thrashed  me  for  going  to  the  smoke-house  after 
sugar.  However,  the  next  night  by  going  there  as  I  had  done, 
my  ant  truth  was  confirmed.  It  was  decided  to  run  ropes 
down  from  the  beams  above,  making  a  swinging  platform,  and 
put  the  sugar  thereon.  I  went  out  there  at  two  o'clock  the 
next  morning  with  a  candle  and  the  ants  had  gone  up  the 
side  of  the  smoke-house  on  to  the  ceiling,  down  the  rafters 
to  the  cross  beams,  down  these  to  the  sugar  barrels,  and  when 
my  light  flashed  on  them  they  all  dropped  off  the  platform  and 
scampered  into  their  holes,  but  not  one  dropped  the  chunk  of 
sugar  it  was  carrying. 

We  then  tarred  the  ropes  and  before  midnight  they  had 
the  tar  all  covered  with  sand  and  gravel  and  were  at  work 
on  the  sugar.  We  then  made  a  table  out  of  the  platform  and 
put  the  posts  down  in  the  center  of  pans  that  held  ten  gallons 
of  water;  the  water  was  eight  inches  deep  between  the  rims 
of  the  can,  and  the  posts  were  ten  inches  apart.  In  three 
night's  time  they  had  six  passageways  covered  and  filled  and 
they  were  sugaring  their  nests.  The  Union  Pacific  Railroad 
filling  in  the  cut-off  from  Salt  Lake  City  West  recalled  to  my 
mind  these  sugar  ants.  When  we  put  the  sugar  in  tin  cans 


282  SOME   INSECT    AND   OTHER   TRUTHS. 

or  glass  jars  the  ants  bothered  it  no  more.  They  had  no  drills 
to  bore  holes  through  the  glass. 

The  other  ants,  called  grain  ants,  will  depopulate  great  dis- 
tricts of  country  in  the  sections  bounded  as  before  described 
unless  they  are  exterminated,  and  this  cannot  be  done  by 
scalding",  by  killing  from  poison  or  by  water,  and,  if  I  were 
to  tell  tWe  people  how  it  can  be  done  and  publish  it  to  the 
world  free,  it  would  be  so  simple  that  no  one  would  do  it 
and  would  question  where  I  get  on  and  where  I  get  off.  By 
covering  these  ant  beds  with  a  heavy  mulching  of  straw,  so 
heat  may  not  hatch  the  eggs,  the  job  is  done. 

If  I  were  to  fill  my  book  with  other  strange  things  that 
I  have  seen  in  my  day,  I  fear  that  my  reader  would  be  weary. 
One  more  and  I  will  quit.  To  have  printed  this  book  on  the 
old  Washington  press,  as  printing  was  done  when  I  was  a  boy, 
and  to  have  done  it  in  the  time  the  man  who  did  the  work  con- 
tracted to  do  it  in,  would  require  nearly  one  hundred  thousand 
dollars'  worth  of  presses  and  three  thousand  men  and  women. 
There  are  millions  of  people  who  consider  themselves  intel- 
ligent who  would  not  believe  the  statement  I  would  make 
respecting  the  time  taken  for  the  publication  of  this  book.  I 
own  an  interest  in  a  press  that,  worked  by  a  man  and  a  boy, 
turns  out  more  work  per  hour  than  any  three  thousand  men 
on  earth  could  have  turned  out  when  I  was  a  boy. 

I  stand  with  a  noble  compeer,  a  worthy  associate,  com- 
panion and  friend  on  this  plane  and  looking  back  yonder  fifty 
years,  called  leagues  ago,  I  see  what  I  and  they  had  to  do 
in  order  to  make  a  living,  and  such  a  living  as  it  was!  and 
then  look  on  all  the  trails  and  byways  and  avenues  and  roads 
that  lead  to  where  we  now  stand.  Would  anybody  be  sur- 
prised at  our  looking  at  each  other  with  most  wonderful 
admiration,  esteem  and  respect,  each  for  the  other,  considering 
that  it  was  we  who  did  it?  And  then,  turning  round,  we 
look  at  that  higher  beacon  of  fame,  of  honor  and  of  glory, 


SOME    INSECT    AND   OTHER    TRUTHS.  283 

shining  plainly  to  our  vision  less  than  fifty  leagues  or  years 
beyond,  all  of  which  can  only  be  attained  by  and  from  the 
possibilities  that  we  have  planted  and  established,  and  we  look 
around  to  our  right  and  left  and  see  our  noble  sons  storming 
those  heights,  carrying  on  and  forward  the  banner  that  we 
brought  here,  going  as  bravely  on  and  forward  in  their  work 
as  we  did  in  ours ;  lives  there  one  to  doubt  that  truly  heavenly 
joy  permeates  our  very  hearts'  fiber? 

"If  such   there  be,  go   mark  him  well, 
For   him    no    minstrel    raptuces   swell." 

Most  of  my  book  has  been  written  near  my  birthplace; 
all  of  it  has  been  inside  of  a  few  weeks  and  while  traveling 
on  the  plains  from  ocean  to  ocean  and  from  the  Gulf  to  the 
Lakes,  denominated  by  Proctor  Knott  as  being  the  "unsalted 
seas  of  America,"  and  while  crossing  the  Atlantic  and  doing 
the  Continent,  and  it  has  all  been  written  from  recollection 
and  not  from  notes  or  books  of  reference,  therefore  it  can  be 
properly  called  by  the  name  that  I  have  given  it.  Nothing  is 
more  natural  than  that  the  carping  critic,  the  suck-egg  hound 
who  is  good  for  nothing  else  than  to  make  a  noise  and  to 
attract  attention,  the  educated  ape,  the  trick-taught  baboon  or 
the  kicking  mules  that  have  no  pride  of  ancestry  and  no  hope 
of  a  descendant,  should  assail  me,  and  that  such  as  these  will 
I  well  know  and  I  would  be  a  fool  to  doubt,  but  when  me- 
thinks  they  are  the  sort  who  devastate  a  country,  burning 
down  the  ancestral  log  cabin  and  leaving  nothing  but  waste 
and  desolation  behind  them,  I  am  more  happy  in  knowing 
that  I  have  been  a  constructor,  a  builder,  a  blazer  of  the  way 
and  a  John  the  Baptist  in  the  wilderness,  preparing  for  the 
one  who  comes  after  me,  the  latchets  of  whose  shoes  I  may  be 
unworthy  to  unbuckle,  I  am  more  happy  for  I  know  that  if 
there  is  no  future,  no  hereafter,  and  no  reward  for  me,  and 
that  there  is  no  world  to  go  to,  yet  have  I  made  this  world 


284.  SOME   INSECT   AND   OTHER   TRUTHS. 

the  better  by  having  been  in  it;  and  if  there  is  a  brighter 
future,  of  which  I  have  no  doubt,  then  I  will  be  there  at 
the  harvest  time,  and  though  there,  like  here,  I  may  not  be 
able  to*  whistle  or  sing  a  tune,  I  will  bring  water  and  flowers 
to  those  who  do  and  are,  and  will  in  the  happy  hunting- 
ground  find  fields  of  pleasure  vastly  more  extensive  than  I 
have  found  in  this  earth,  in  ministering  to  the  wants  of  those 
who'  are  with  me,  as  well  as  providing  for  the  wants  of  those 
who  come  after  me,  for  truly  I  have  found  it  more  pleasur- 
able on  this  earth  to>  give  than  to  receive. 

As  there  is  a  strain  or  train  of  mirth  and  fun  that  per- 
vades every  soul  on  earth,  there  is  in  me,  and  that  I  have 
had  sugar  in  my  tea  and  coffee,  and  at  times  also  cream,  in 
other  words  my  pleasures  and  enjoyments  and  sweets  as  well 
as  sours,  be  there  none  to  d,oubt. 

From  my  earliest  infancy  it  was  my  habit  to  "butt  in," 
the  first  report  of  which  was  left  when  I  was  a  boy  four 
years  old,  when  I  told  a  woman,  who  had  told  my  mother  in 
my  hearing,  of  her  misfortunes  from  having  gone  to  a  place 
when  she  did :  "If  you  had  stayed  at  home  like  mother  does, 
it  would  not  have  happened."  And  for  which  mother  gave 
me  a  slap  and  the  old  man  would  have  given  me  a  tanning  had 
he  have  been  told. 

I  heard  an  older  hlalf  brother  say  when  I  was  five  years 
old  that  "the  fools  are  not  all  dead  yet,"  which  I  thought  was 
uncommonly  smart  and  repeated  it  to  an  old  man,  a  neighbor, 
who  was  telling  my  father  how  he  had  sowed  his  wheat  in  the 
wrong  phase  of  the  moon  and  for  which  in  common  parlance 
I  soon  thereafter  caught . 

That  I  have  been  more  pulled  up  and  kicked  up  than  I 
have  been  brought  up  and  educated,  and  that  what  I  have 
learned  as  well  as  what  I  have  acquired  in  a  wordly  way  was 
from  some  sort  of  painful  and  costly  personal  experience,  no 
one  will  question  whoi  has  even  known  me.  I  never  could 


SOME    INSECT    AND    OTHER    TRUTHS.  285 

sing  a  song,  paint  a  picture  or  tell  a  story  as  any  one  else 
could  or  would,  and  I  never  have  had  to  carry  a  branding 
iron  and  firepot  around  with  me  to  brand  anything  of  my 
own,  though  I  often  have  had  to  appeal  to  the  law  for  the 
recovery  from  thieves  of  that  which  I  had  made,  built  or 
invented. 

Often  have  I  thought  that  I  should  have  been  a  lawyer, 
then  I  would  not  have  had  to  pay  such  fees  to  the  profes- 
sion as  I  have  paid  in  my  day.  Then  again  I  have  thought 
that  I  should  have  been  a  physician  that  I  might  have  been 
able  to  save  from  the  clutches  of  quacks  more  than  I  have. 
I  might  have  been  a  preacher  but  for  truths  that  I  have  here- 
tofore stated  in  this  my  book.  I  could  easily  have  been  a 
leader  but  from  having  seen  the  demagogism  and  hypocrisy 
of  the  great  majority  of  leaders  whom  I  have  analyzed  in 
my  life.  Any  man  born  of  ordinary  foxy  cunning  and  with 
a  gift  of  gab  can  easily .  become  a  leader  in  any  community 
in  which  he  has  lived  and  by  resorting  to  cunning  can  live 
along  and  lead  the  masses  of  ignorant  mortals  who  are  too 
lazy  to  think,  to>  plan  and  to  work  for  themselves. 

Things  have  changed  in  every  respect  and  in  all  direc- 
tions and  in  every  way  and  in  all  fashions  within  my  recol- 
lection and  I  have  not  been  slow  in  changing  with  them, 
wherefore  I  often  in  looking  back  see  the  fool  acts  in  my  past 
life  and  find  consolation  only  in  the  fact  that  my  compeers 
and  associates  were  as  great  fools  or  even  worse  than  I  was. 
Well  can  I  say  fools  as  well  as  misery  love  company. 

I  believe  that  he  who  cannot  see  the  fool  in  himself  in 
the  past  never  builds  even  a  log  cabin  or  a  hut  for  the  want 
of  wisdom,  which  in  mortals  like  myself  can  only  be  acquired 
by  experiences,  though  dear  be  the  schooling.  I  often  find 
great  pleasure  in  associating  and  commingling  with  people 
whoi  have  lived  a  life  of  toil,  trouble  and  anxieties  without 
accomplishing  any  good  purpose  on  earth.  They  come  and 


2&6  SOME   INSECT   AND   OTHER   TRUTHS. 

they  gp  and  leave  no  trace  or  trail  behind  them  save  and 
accept  that  it  may  be  seeds  of  weeds  like  purslane,  to  torment 
the  tiller  of  the  grounds  that  they  have  cleared. 

Who  plants  but  to  be  planting  without  regard  as  to  the 
harvest  is  the  mortal  who  has  no  aim  in  life  and  can  be  com- 
pared only  to  the  "drone"  in -the  busy  hive  which  is  said  to 
be  there  only  to  eat  the  over-supply  of  honey  the  busy  bee 
brings  in,  and  we  are  told — how  true  it  may  be  I  know  not, 
because  I  never  could  have  to  do  with  bees  but  that  I  \vas 
stung" — the  drones  are  killed  off  when  the  supply  o>f  honey 
becomes  normal.  If  the  human  race  would  only  kill  off  their 
drones  at  the  proper  time,  I  might  have  been  able  to  have 
had  honey  on  my  plate  through  life  moire  often  than  I  have 
had  and  would  not  always  have  had  to  eat  my  buckwheat 
without  it. 

It  has  been  the  desideratum  of  scientists,  of  statesmen  and 
of  great  men  since  time  that  history  gives  no  report  of  how- 
civilization  could  be  advanced  without  making  the  rich  richer 
and  the  poor  poorer.  I  have  lost  no  time  trying  to  fathom  or 
elucidate  this  proposition.  The  question  with  me  has  always 
been  how  I  could  become  richer  without  robbing  some  one 
of  his  riches,  but  rather  by  increasing  the  same,  and  if  I  have 
been  a  failure  on  this  line  it  was  because  the  men  that  had 
the  riches  may  have  believed  in  silence  but  not  in  division, 
no  more  than  he  believed  in  division  after  multiplication. 

A  common  swindler  and  wag  behind  the  bars  was  asked, 
"Why  are  you  there?" 

"For  drying  snow  and  selling  it  for  salt,"  was  the  reply. 
And  again,  "For  having  rented  my  ground  out  to  a  man  who 
planted  it  in  vegetables  and  I  turned  it  up  on  edge  and  planted 
the  other  side  in  onions." 

A  judge  before  passing  sentence  on  a  criminal  asked  him 
how  he  came  to  take  the  watch.  He  said : 

"I  was  sick  and  the  doctor  gave  me  some  medicine  and 


SOME   INSECT    AND    OTHER    TRUTHS.  287 

told  me  if  I  would  take  time  it  would  cure  me,  so  I  took  the 
watch." 

He  got  further  time  from  the  judge. 

Elsewhere  in  my  book  I  told  how  I  was  cured  from  taking 
things  without  asking  for  them,  and  through  life  I  have  never 
sought  to  get  something  for  nothing,  as  so  many  of  my  fellow 
men  that  I  have  distanced  in  the  race  of  life  have  ever  been 
on  the  lookout  for. 

Some  years  back  I  was  promoting  an  enterprise  that,  to 
be  successful,  must  reach  all  the  people — the  ground  sill  folks, 
if  you  please,  in  all  the  land  from  shore  to  shore  and  as  high 
up  the  mountain  as  I  could  reach.  I  was  offered  the  names 
of  the  Louisiana  Lottery  Company's  patrons  that  were  classi- 
fied by  the  postoffices  throughout  the  whole  United  States 
and  Canada.  Thinking  that  they  were  the  sort  of  cattle  that 
would  nibble  at  my  grass  and  that  even  before  the  seed  was 
sown,  I  got,  and  most  naturally,  the  lists,  in  the  State  where 
I  had  the  greatest  number  of  acquaintances. 

However  my  scheme  turned  out  and  what  there  was  of 
"sheaves"  in  it  for  me  in  the  way  of  dividends  need  not  be 
told  here.  In  looking  over  this  list  I  found  that  in  the  town 
not  many  leagues  away  from  where  L  was  born  the  names 
in  the  club  formed  there,  who  paid  their  five  dollars  every 
month  over  to  the  agent  of  the  Lottery  Company  in  their 
place  and  had  so  paid  for  four  years,  included  the  names  of  a 
number  of  my  early  day  acquaintances  and  1  found  similar 
lists  and  names  in  every  place  that  I  had  become  acquainted, 
and  I  made  it  a  business  to  go  and  see  how  many  of  these 
club  members  were  men  of  affairs  and  had  wealth  either  at 
home  or  in  the  shape  of  a  bank  account,  and  I  found  on  inves- 
tigation not  a  single  one  but  that  was  just  such  a 
farmer  and  hard-worker  as  I  have  described  elsewhere  in  my 
book,  and  I  further  found  that  there  was  not  one  of  them 
that  knew  more  about  the  history  of  the  country  and  theology 


288  SOME   INSECT   AND   OTHER   TRUTHS. 

and  politics  and  science  and  geology  and  medicine  and  rail- 
road building  and  how  to  raise  a  family  and  how  to  raise  big 
crops  than  I  ever  hope  to  know  about  any  or  either,  and  that 
there  was  not  one  of  the  entire  crew  that  I  would  have  loaned 
a  dollar  to  on  the  best  security  that  they  could  have  offered, 
not  even  excepting  that  which  they  the  most  prized. 

They  lived  like  paupers,  year  in  and  year  out,  but  they 
never  failed  to  get  the  five  dollars  a  month  for  the  Louisiana 
Lottery  swindlers  who  traveled  the  wide  world  over  in 
elegance,  ease,  comfort  and  grandeur,  while  their  poor  dupes 
toiled  on  and  on;  and  thus  it  was  from  the  beginning,  ever 
has  been  and  ever  will  be,  and  I  give  it  as  my  candid  opinion 
that  he  who  tries  to  change  this  condition  of  affairs  is  the 
one  who  will  die  poor  if  not  repentant.  Because  George 
Washington  "could  not  lie,  in  my  opinion,  he  is  entitled  to 
no  great  amount  of  credit;  but  he  who  can  lie  and  will  not 
is.  I  have  never  claimed  any  credit  in  this  deal,  for  I  am 
reminded  by  the  presence  of  a  gentleman  who,  years  ago,  on 
hearing  me  tell  a  great  truth)  said,  "Nothing  is  lost  from 
Tjieo's  telling  it." 

When  a  boy  about  fourteen,  General  Sam  Houston,  of 
whom  I  had  read — and  who  had  not  in  the  times  of  my  boy- 
hood days — was  billed  to  make  a  speech  in  our  town,  Seguin, 
Texas,  at  a  great  barbecue  that  was  being  given  in  his  honor 
—he  was  then  United  States  Senator.  My  "old  man"  was 
opposed  to  everything  on  earth  that  gave  pleasure  to  boys, 
therefore  precious  little  of  my  time  was  spent  in  fishing,  and 
nothing  that  I  received  in  the  way  of  pleasures  came  by  his 
consent.  We  kept  from  our  younger  brother  and  sisters  and 
from  the  "old  man"  all  knowledge  of  the  coming  of  Sam 
Houston,  and  we  planned  a  scheme  that  won  by  which  we 
were  enabled  to  see  as  well  as  hear  his  great  speech  and  fill 
up  at  the  great  barbecue. 

We  had  to  deceive  the  "old  man"  and  we  did  it  in  good 


SOME    INSECT    AND    OTHER    TRUTHS.  289 

style  by  bribing  a  cowboy  to  tell  him  that  "Bessie  Brown," 
an  old  cow  which  had  been  lost  nearly  a  year,  an  animal  that 
he  put  great  value  on,  though  only  a  Texas  scrub,  had  been 
seen  at  a  certain  place  about  fourteen  miles  off,  a  watering- 
place  where  the  cattle  came  but  once  a  day  to  drink.  With 
this  information  we  two  boys  were  told  to  saddle  our  horses 
and  start  out  in  the  morning  early,  taking  with  us  a  day  or 
two's  supply  of  "corn  dodger,"  rancid  bacon  and  coffee.  We 
lost  no  time  in  getting  off. 

Our  only  trouble  now  was  that  two1  of  our  neighbors  who 
were  on  intimate  terms  with  dad  and  particular  "blabbers" 
would  see  us  at  the  barbecue  and  become  informers.  We 
watched  for  them  and  kept  away  from  where  we  thought 
they  might  be.  Perhaps  it  will  be  interesting  to  tell  what 
a  Texas  barbecue  was  and  how  condutced. 

A  ditch  sixty  feet  long,  four  feet  wide  and  as  deep  was 
filled  with  live  oak  wood  and  fired  and  burned  down  to  coals, 
then  clean  poles  were  laid  across  over  the  embers,  and  on 
these  were  spread  quarters  of  beeves,  mutton,  pigs,  turkeys 
and  chickens,  and  fish  if  any  could  be  caught.  The  meats 
were  turned  over  and  over  again,  on  this  occasion  by  half  a 
dozen  or  more  stalwart  negro  men  with  pitchforks,  while  as 
many  more  came  along  basting  it  with  well-spiced,  what  one 
man  calls,  "wallering  stuff."  I  pity  the  boy  who  never  had 
a  chance  to  get  a  good  day's  work  in  at  one  of  these  barbe- 
cues where  such  meat  as  this  was  served.  On  this  occasion 
it  took  twenty  beeves,  sixty  muttons,  two  or  three  hundred 
chickens,  half  as  many  turkeys,  besides  corn  pomes  by  the 
wagon-load  and  green  corn  and  new  sweet  potatoes  by  the 
bushel. 

The  tables  were  long  and  quite  sufficient  to  accommodate 
fifteen  hundred  people,  who,  when  the  master  of  ceremonies 
blew  that  long  tin  horn  that  had  done  service  at  many  a 
Methodist  camp-meeting,  rushed  as  for  dear  life.  We  two 


290  SOME    INSECT    AND    OTHER    TRUTHS. 

* 

had  played  for  position  and  got  there,  and  though  we  had 
contributed  nothing  to  its  get  up,  we  got  our  part  of  some 
one's  else  contribution,  and  ever  afterwards  blessed  the  man 
who  invented  the  barbecue. 

I  had  seen  only  a  very  few  great  men,  though  I  had  read 
about  many.  General  Sam  Houston  came  up  to  his  picture 
recommendation  in  every  respect  and  his  speech  was  in  keep- 
ing with  what  I  had  expected  of  him  from  a  boy's  standpoint. 
Of  the  many  men  of  my  acquaintance,  General  Sam  Houston 
was  "the  noblest  Roman  of  them  all."  No  truly  good  men, 
in  my  opinion,  ever  became  acquainted  with  him  but  to 
respect  him,  as  all  good  men  should  be  respected.  There  are 
few  men  on  this  earth  who  come  as  far  from  being  a  man- 
worshiper  as  I  am,  and  as  a  general  proposition  I  have  no 
use  for  a  man  who  is  in  any  sense  an  idolizer  of  any  human, 
living  or  dead. 

General  Sam  Houston's  speech  on  this  occasion  was  that 
of  a  soldier,  statesman  and  patriot,  and  few  were  his  equal 
when  it  came  to  dealing  out  left  hand  blows  to  his  enemies, 
for  he  had  them  in  Texas  and  they  were  of  a  class  that 
added  honor  to  any  man  who  had  their  enmity,  because  he 
was  no  boodler  or  grafter. 

A  few  years  after  this  I  became  personally  acquainted  with 
the  General,  and  while  he  was  Governor  of  the  State,  I  might 
say,  in  one  sense  at  least,  I  was  his  protege.  He  was  a  Union 
man  and  thereby  brought  down  upon  himself  the  hatred  of 
all  such  as  composed  the  Committee  of  Public  Safety,  of 
which  I  have  previously  given  an  account,  and  a  good  account 
of  one  Committee  of  Public  Safety  in  one  county  stands  for 
all  others  in  all  counties  in  the  State.  These  Committees  of 
Public  Safety  were  quite  a  different  class  of  men  and  of  alto- 
gether different  characters  as  compared  with  those  great  and 
noted  committees  that  promoted  the  Revolutionary  War  and 
that  were  organized  in  all  communities  from  Maine  to  South 


SOME    INSECT    AND    OTHER    TRUTHS.  29! 

Carolina.  They  had  what  was  called  "traveling  teachers"  in 
those  days,  who  rode  from  station  to  station,  going  North, 
telling  the  different  communities  of  how  the  spirit  was  spread- 
ing in  communities  that  they  had  passed  through.  One  or 
more  of  these  ''outriders"  started  from  the  north  end  at  the 
same  time  an  equal  number  started  from  the  south  end,  and  in 
this  way  the  spirit  of  the  Revolution  was  kept  up  among  our 
forefathers,  which  resulted  in  the  establishment  of  this  nation 
of  nations,  the  outrider  and  teacher,  guide  and  director,  and 
may  I  not  say,  sponsor  of  all  nations  on  earth  today. 

An  old  uncle  who  had  served  under  the  flag  and  at  York- 
town,  told  me  when  a  boy  this  narrative  or  history  :^  "An  'out- 
rider' from  North  Carolina  who  was  on  his  return  from  a 
trip  away  up  in  Maine,  told  of  the  battle  of  Bennington, 
where  the  Green  Mountain  Boys  met  the  red  coats,  as  fol- 
lows: 'These  New  Englanders,  these  round-heads  and  Puri- 
tans' said  he,  'got  into  battle  with  a  Bible.  They  first  sing 
and  then  pray,  and  O  God !  how  they  fight/  ' 

Not  so  with  any  of  the  Texas  Committees  of  Public 
Safety.  When  the  Secession  Convention  was  called  in  Aus- 
tin and  met  in  the  hall  of  the  Lower  House  and  everything 
was  primed  and  ready  for  the  vote,  General  Houston,  the 
Governor  of  the  State,  was  invited  in  to  see  the  State  voted 
out  of  the  Union.  He  was  given  a  seat  below  the  President 
of  the  Convention  (O.  M.  Roberts,  an  original  secessionist 
and" possibly  the  greatest  jurist  that  ever  lived  in  America,  the 
Chief  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court,  not  only  in  the  State  but 
of  the  Republic,  up  to  that  time  the  author  of  thirty-two 
volumes,  and  more  since,  that  is  quoted  from  more  extensively 
than  any  State  or  United  States  Supreme  Justice  is  cited), 
not  by  his  side  as  a  mark  of  honor,  but  at  his  feet  as  a  mark 
of  disrespect,  and  there  this  old  patriot,  sage,  statesman  and 
noble  Roman  sat  leaning  on  his  cane. 

The  crowd  hissed  when  Thockmorton  of  Collen  rose  and 


2Q2  SOME   INSECT   AND   OTHER   TRUTHS. 

voted  "Nay,"  the  first  vote  polled  for  the  Union  after  three 
hundred  had  responded  "Aye"  ta  their  names  as  they  were 
called,  which  hissing  continued  for  many  minutes  without  an 
effort  being  made  on  the  part  of  the  President  to  stop  it. 
When  the  noise  had  abated  Thockmorton  rose  in  his  seat 
and  said : 

"Mr.  President :     Patriots  tremble  when  the  rabble  hiss." 

And  it  was  said  that  the  first  tears  that  had  ever  been 
seen  in  Sam  Houston's  eyes  were  observed.  Thockmorton  had 
been  a  member  of  Congress  and  was  again  after  the  war  and 
never  filled  a  public  position  or  station  but  that  it  reflected 
honor,  not  only  on  himself,  but  his  constituents  as  well. 

We  two  boys  spent  two  days  away  from  home  having  a 
good  rest  from  the  toil  of  the  farm  and  came  home  without 
the  cow.  It  had  rained  heavily  and  we  told  father  that  the 
water  was  so  plentiful  around  over  the  prairie  and  in  "Rogue's 
Hollow"  that  she  did  not  need  to  come  to  the  pool  for  water. 
When  it  dried  up  we  had  another  three  or  four  days'  rest  from 
toil  and  from  work  that  never  brought  recompense.  The  cow 
originally  cost  twenty  dollars,  and  we  boys  got  more  than 
one  thousand  dollars'  worth  o'f  rest  and  information  from 
hunting  that  cow,  which  was  never  found. 

The  habits  of  some  people  are  wonderfully  illustrated  in 
a  truth  I  must  now  relate  of  the  Texas  stock  long-homed  steer 
and  his  relatives.  The  average  cows  would  go  about  two 
miles  from  a  watering-place  for  grass,  which  would  become 
eaten  off.  Salt  was  a  scarce  article  in  any  of  the  soils  or 
streams  in  the  principal  ranges  of  the  southwest  and  nothing 
would  more  entice  a  cow  or  Texas  steer  from  his  accustomed 
beat  than  salt.  Knowing  this  we  would  take  a  forty  or  fifty 
foot  cottonwood  log  and  haul  it  away  out  in  the  prairie  and 
half  a  mile  beyond  where  the  cattle  usually  ranged  and  then 
rope  a  few  of  the  oldest  cows,  whose  children  unto  the  third 
and  fourth  generation  would  always  follow  her,  tagging  along 


SOME    INSECT    AND    OTHER    TRUTHS.  293 

behind  to  see  what  was  going  to  be  done  with  "grandma," 
and  sometimes  a  four-or-five-year-old  descendant  would  show 
up  for  fight.  These  cows  would  be  pulled  and  dragged  to 
where  the  log  had  been  hauled  and  where  with  an  ax  we  had 
boxed  holes  two  feet  apart  and  filled  them  with  salt. 

However  much  the  cow  was  excited  and  made  mad  by 
the  treatment  she  was  receiving,  and  her  descendants  diito, 
when  her  nose  was  pushed  down  on  to  the  salt  she  bellowed  for 
joy,  and  so  did  the  rest  of  the  herd  that  quickly  found  the 
salt  in  the  other  boxes  in  the  log.  In  this  way  we  got  our 
herds  on  pastures  new  and  green. 

We  called  them  the  licking  logs,  and  every  man  had  his 
licking  log  and  in  this  way  taught  his  cattle  to  bunch  together 
and  watched  their  increase  and  multiplication,  and  should  an 
unbranded  yearling  get  in  that  ground  a  second  or  third  time, 
the  brand  iron  that  belonged  to  that  licking  log  band  made 
him  bellow  from  the  burn  on  his  hip.  When  the  grass  had 
been  eaten  out  around  the  licking  log  it  would  be  hauled  a 
quarter  of  a  mile  further  out  on  the  paririe,  where  there 
was  new,  fresh  and  untrodden  grass.  When  the  cattle  came 
from  the  creek  or  watering-place  two  or  three  miles  off  and 
found  the  log  had  been  taken  away,  then  we  boys  saw  fun, 
for  it  would  seem  that  all  the  old  steers  and  cows  turned  in 
and  accused  each  other  for  having  been  the  cause  of  its  dis- 
appearance, and  from  lowing  and  pawing  the  earth  and  bel- 
lowing and  bawling,  fearful  was  the  scene  to  behold  and  not 
until  we  had  roped  another  cow  and  pulled  her  away,  as  on 
the  first  occasion,  to  the  licking  log  beyond,  would  this  bel- 
lowing and  pawing  cease. 

Now  I  have  seen  in  my  day  thousands  of  men  who,  if 
you  would  just  remove  their  licking  log,  would  go  on  just  as 
our  wild  Texas  steers  did,  and  who,  like  wild  Texas  steers, 
were  of  no>  account  to  the  earth  only  as  they  were  brought 
to  the  shambles  and  used  for  the  good  of  mankind  in  general. 


294  SOME    INSECT    AND    OTHER    TRUTHS. 

In  my  day  and  time  I  was  considered  a  good  horseman  and 
had  some  experience  on  the  ranch,  quite  enough  to'  satisfy 
me  that  I  was  not  cut  for  a  Texas  stockman,  and  when  satis- 
fied on  any  subject  I  never  failed  to  change  my  course,  posi- 
tion, undertaking  or  business.  I  believe  that  yet  I  could  do 
many  things  thousands  of  people  that  I  have  seen  going  to 
a  base  or  foot  ball  team  \\ould  think  impossible. 

Buffaloi  Bill  has  given  exhibitions  that  received  great 
applause,  which  I  have  seen  more  than  excelled  by  common 
cowboys.  The  man  or  boy  who  has  not  had  an  opportunity 
to  see  Buffalo  Bill's  exhibition  or  the  great  play  entitled  "The 
Texas  Steer,"  by  Hoyt,  has  missed  seeing  the  most  realistic 
of  all  exhibitions  or  plays,  not  even  excepting  P.  T.  Barnum's 
Original  Shows. 


MEXICAN   NATIONAL  MUSEUM. 


In  the  National  Museum  in  the  City  of  Mexico  is  to  be 
seen,  to  me  at  least,  more  wonderful  things  than  I  have  seen 
in  that  of  the  British  in  London.  There,  in  Mexico,  can  be 
seen  evidences  in  abundance  of  the  existence  of  a  civilization, 
love  of  art,  knowledge  of  astrology  as  well  as  of  astronomy — 
and  other,  to  us,  lost  arts,  that  place  the  exhumed  antiquities 
of  Ancient  Chaldea,  of  Greece,  of  Egypt,  and  of  all  our  old 
world  ideas  far  beyond  the  worthiness  of  computing  or  recall. 

The  invader  Cortez  and  all  his  followers  since,  and  up  to 
within  the  past  thirty  years,  spent  the  force  of  their  energies  in 
destroying  and  obliterating  every  and  all  evidences  of  there 
having  been  a  civilization  in  Mexico  and  Peru  that  was  greater, 
better,  more  noble  and  Christian  than  was  that  they,  the  cut- 
throats, robbers,  pirates,  brigands  and  invaders,  brought.  Who 
that  reads  Prescott's  "Conquest  of  Mexico,"  if  not  a  bigoted 
Romanist,  let  alone  the  mountains  of  matter  he  dared  not 
have  refered  to,  and  that  has  since  been  brought  to  light  can. 
and  fails  to  see  therein  the  truth  of  the  above,  is  not  of  whom 
God  expects  much.  One  race  of  people  with  one  belief  has 
from  creation's  first  day  been  engaged  in  pulling  down  another, 
and  so  with  civilizations,  and  thus  it  is  even  unto  this  day, 
though  the  battle  is  not  as  fierce  as  it  has  been  in  the  past,  even 
within  the  recollection  of  man  now  living. 

The  man  who  undertook  to  read  in  the  rocks'  records  of 
ages  that  existed  more  than  six  thousand  years  ago  was  called 
an  infidel,  a  deist,  an  unbeliever ;  for  the  church's  chrorologist 
had  written  it ;  two  thousand  years  from  creation  to  the  flood ; 
two  thousand  more  to  the  birth  of  Christ,  and  then  on,  and 
when  two  thousand  more  revoluted  then  would  come  the  end ; 
'  295 


296  MEXICAN   NATIONAL  MUSEUM. 

and  the  church  worse  than  crucified,  if  such  thing  could  be,  all 
who  questioned  not  only  the  chronology  of  Usher  but  many 
other  more  absurd  and  by  far  more  disgraceful,  ignorant,  selfish 
and  accursedly  superstitious  propositions.  Usher,  no  doubt, 
was  a  fairly  intelligent  man  of  his  day,  but  in  point  of  general 
information  the  fifteen-year-old  schoolboy  of  this  xlay  knows 
more  than  Usher  and  all  of  his  associates  could  have  possibly 
known. 

In  this  museum,  among  the  surprises  in  store  for  the  one 
who  has  been  taught  to  believe  that  our  fathers  and  brothers 
who  have  delved  into  the  ruins  of  ancient  cities,  know  and  have 
found  out  all  as  respects  the  peoples  who  inhabited  this  globe — 
for  aught  you  and  I  know — ten  million  years  before  Moses 
wrote  or  had  written  of  the  birth  or  making  of  Adam. 

The  Aztec  Calendar  stone,  weighing  more  than  twenty 
tons,  has  engraved  on  its  face,  dial  shaped,  all  but  two  of  the 
signs  of  the  zodiac  and  all  of  the  astronomical  indications  and 
calculations,  and  so  perfect  is  their  division  of  time  that  not  a 
moment  is  missing.  Our  Julian  Calendar  is  the  work  of  a 
schoolboy  in  comparison. 

The  man  who  thinks  our  churches  are  any  more  forward 
in  promulgating  truths  being  revealed  by  explorers  than  were 
those  of  our  fathers  does  not  weigh  aright  the  spirit  of  man 
when  once  in  power.  The  teacher,  the  preacher  of  today  is  no 
more  apt  to  tell  the  truth  and  teach  it  than  was  the  old  monk 
who  may  have  been  burned  at  the  stake  for  teaching  and 
preaching  a  doctrine  he  was  willing  to  sacrifice  his  life  for, 
though  false  it  may  have  been. 

It  is  one's  belief — faith — that  will  land  him,  in  the  happy 
hunting-ground,  even  though,  as  I  believe,  there  were  no  truth 
in  that  belief — faith. 

"Paul,  than  art  beside  thyself;  much  learning  hath  made 
thee  mad,"  comes  to  every  map  who  has  a  clear  perception  and 
an  opportunity  to  observe. 


MEXICAN  NATIONAL  MUSEUM.  297 

Standing  at  a  certain  point  in  Yellowstone  Park,  can  be 
seen  stratifications  representing  nine  epochs  and  eons  of  time, 
each  separate  and  distinct  from  the  other,  and  each  represent- 
ing a  cycle  of  time  perhaps,  and  no  one  can  deny  or  dispute 
that  I  am  correct  in  stating  it,  of  ten  million  years  each.  The 
man  who  professes  to  know  the  most  is  often  the  most  ignorant 
of  all  professors.  The  learned  idiot  that  teaches  medicine  or 
theology  or  any  other  science  of  the  day  is  a  dolt  at  anything 
else  you  may  put  him  at,  and,  therefore,  why  have  confidence 
or  respect  in  his  theories  or  judgments? 

When  a  boy  I  had  to  attend,  every  fourth  Sunday,  old  man 
Terry's  harangues  about  hell  and  heaven,  and  there  I  would 
have  to  sit  on  a  puncheon  bench  without  a  back  for  as  long  as 
four  hours  at  a  time  listening  to  that  old  ignoramus  tell  the 
other  ignoramuses  what  was  no -better  than  lies,  for  he  could 
prove  nothing  that  he  said ;  and  why  should  I  not  have  had  a 
prejudice  all  my  life  against  such  would-be  "sky  pilots,"  and 
doubly  so  in  view  of  the  fact  that  I  never  have  in  all  my  life 
seen  one  single  instance  of  their  foretellings  or  promises  com- 
ing true. 

It  is  my  opinion,  grounded  upon  experiences  and  from 
close  observation,  that  as  a  people  we  read  too  much.  We 
imbibe  the  thoughts  and  theories,  the  notions  and  unconsciously 
the  villanies  and  schemes  of  the  writer  and  educator  we  read 
after.  We  think  too  little  for  ourselves;  we  allow  others  to 
furnish  us  ready-made  plans  they  keep  in  stock  on  shelves  for 
us  as  the  merchant  does  hats,  shoes  and  ready-made  clothing. 
The  great  masses  of  people  think  only  of  something  to  eat,  of 
beer,  booze  and  a  place  to  sleep,  and  therefore  are  only  crea- 
tures of  and  for  the  designing  hypocrite  and  demagogue. 

In  our  great  cities  there  are  three  classes  which  I  will  term 
the  workers,  the  clerkers  and  the  shirkers.  The  workers  go 
down  town  with  the  rising  of  the  sun  or  before,  and  you  will 
see  nine-tenths  of  those  who  are  reading,  are  devouring  some 


298  MEXICAN   NATIONAL  MUSEUM. 

Police  Gazette  or  yellow  journal  that  is  profusely  illustrated 
with  mind-debauching,  soul-degrading,  vile,  vulgar,  suggestive 
pictures.  They  all  carry  their  tin  buckets  filled  with  the  cheap- 
est provender  that  can  be  bought  in  the  market.  When  they 
draw  their  pay  Saturday  night  they  repair  to  a  nearby  saloon, 
where  they  would  stay  all  night  and  Sunday  too  but  that  the 
law  requires  the  saloons  to  close  at  twelve  o'clock  at  night. 

They  reach  home  some  time  in  the  morning  in  a  maudlin, 
drunken  condition  and  sleep  all  day.  They  have  brought  home 
no  money  with  them,  therefore  the  wife  and  mother  has  to  take 
in  washing  to  support  the  children,  and  the  brute  and  beast  o>f  a 
husband  returns  to  his  work  Monday  morning  to  spend  another 
week  as  he  did  the  last,  and  thus  on  and  on  through  his  life, 
and  his  children  who  come  after  him  are,  if  possible,  one  or 
two  degrees  yet  lower  than  he  is. 

They  all  belong  to  the  union  and  never  fail  to  vote  with 
the  party  that  gives  them  the  most  money  for  their  votes. 
They  believe  in  their  walking  delegates,  just  as  did  the  poor 
.down-trodden,  besotted,  deceived  Mexicans  and  Spaniards  in 
their  priest  and  preacher.  Try  you  to.  make  anything  out  of 
this  class  of  people? 

The  second  class,  which  follows  along  an  hour  or  more 
later,  are  the  clerkers.  They  are  better  dressed  but  no  better 
informed.  They  are  just  as  ignorant  and  fully  as  vicious. 
You  will  see  eight-tenths  of  them  reading  the  base  political 
news  and  the  sporting  columns  of  the  paper,  where  the  results 
of  the  horse  races  of  the  day  previous  are  reported.  There 
is  nothing  to  be  told  of  or  about  from  the  papers  they  may  be 
reading,  for  they  are  as  liable  to  be  reading  a  first-class,  respect- 
able paper  as  they  are  a  Police  Gazette  yellow  journal  sheet. 

This  class  is  not  so  well  paid  as  the  former.  They  have 
their  likes  and  dislikes,  but  they  are  a  sorry  set  to  depend  upon 
and  out  of  which  to  make  anything  good.  The  boss  who  over- 
looks them  is  not  quite  so  cruel  as  was  the  Southern  negro 


MEXICAN  NATIONAL  MUSEUM.  299 

I 

overseer,  but  he  would  be  all  the  same  if  the  law  allowed 
him. 

The  third  class,  the  "shirkers,"  who  come  along  down  in 
banking  hours,  are  the  ones  who  do  the  thinking  and  who, 
when  they  work  with  their  hands  and  brains,  will  do  more  in 
one  hour's  time  than  either  of  the  other  two  classes  will  do  in 
their  way  in  half  or  a  full  day.  These  are  the  men  who  are  the 
great  captains  of  industry,  who  keep  the  world  moving  on, 
providing  means  and  ways  for  the  other  two  classes  and  who 
act  on  the  thoughts  of  a  moment  and  first  impressions  and  are 
very  seldom  wrong  in  their  conclusions. 

The  average  merchant  of  the  day  is  no -longer  a  merchant 
in  the  sense  that  he  was  when  I  was  a  boy.  He  may  know 
something  about  hardware  or  some  lines  of  dry  goods  or  of 
groceries,  and  is  sound  as  to  his  general  information  as  to  the 
commercial  world  and  where  this,  that,  and  the  other  is  pro- 
duced and  by  whom  and  how.  He  is  as  ignorant  as  the  farmer 
who  sells  his  corn  for  thirty  cents  a  bushel,  because  he  is  too 
ignorant  and  lazy  to  have  hogs  and  get  sixty  cents  for  it. 

The  average  merchant  of  today  is  run  by  the  commercial 
traveler  called  a  "drummer,"  who  tells  him  what  to  buy  and 
how  to  sell,  and  if  he  deviates  from  the  instructions  the  whole- 
sale house  shuts  down  on  him  and  his  door  is  closed.  When  I 
was  a  boy  I  could  be  sent  to  the  store  for  any  article  and  there 
would  be  no  cheating  in  the  transaction.  The  average  mer- 
chant then  was  a  man  whose  word  was  his  bond  and  the  goods 
that  he  sold  were  just  as  he  represented  them  to  be.  The  sugar 
that  he  sold  at  ten  cents  a  pound  did  not  have  fifteen  or  twenty 
per  cent  of  adulteration  in  it  as  did  the  villain's  across  the  way 
who  sold  at  nine  and  one-half. 

Today  a  man's  eyes  must  be,  his  merchant,  and  when  you 
find  that  you  have  been  cheated  and  by  your  own  judgment 
there  being  no  redress,  try  to  seek  an  honest  dealer  in  the  next 
deal.  He  may  cheat  you  worse  than  the  other  and  thus  on 


3OO  MEXICAN   NATIONAL  MUSEUM. 

because  there  may  be  no  honest  man  in  business  in  your  town. 
This  is  the  reason  why  the  great  mail  order  houses  in  our 
great  cities,  notably  in  Chicago,  have  forged  ahead  and  have 
been  the  means  of  closing  up  many  thousands  oi  little  establish- 
ments around  in  the  country  and  to  the  benefit  of  the  people 
therein,  for  did  these  great  mail  order  houses  fail  to  protect 
their  name  and  reputation  by  sending  good  goods  as  well  as 
cheap  goods  to  their  customers  they  would  soon  goi  by  the 
board. 

I  am  personally  acquainted  with  several  fruit  growers  in 
different  States  in  the  Union,  who  in  packing  a  barrel  of  apples 
put  no  better  at  the  bottom  or  at  the  top  than  is  in  the  middle 
and  the  same  with  all  else  that  they  sell.  They  sell  through 
only  one  commission  house  in  a  city  and  their  brand  on  a 
barrel  of  apples,  peaches  or  what  not  is  a  guarantee  that  they 
are  worth  from  ten  to  as  high  as  fifty  per  cent  more  than  any 
other  fruit  of  the  same  class  or  character. . 

A  son,  the  successor  of  one  of  these  men,  two  years  ago 
killed  the  goose  that  had  laid  his  father's  golden  eggs  continu- 
ously, by  doing  as  did  his  father's  slipshod,  briar-in-the-fence- 
corners,  rotting-down-barn  and  weedy-grounds  neighbors,  i.  e., 
putting  good  ones  on  top  of  the  barrel  or  basket. 

No  man  today  buys  fruit  from  that  orchard,  nor  would 
those  who  had  been  his  father's  patrons  for  more  than  a  fourth 
of  a  century  buy  fruit  from  him  at  any  price;  and  now  the 
briars  are  growing  in  the  old  man's  fence  corners,  and  the 
weeds  are  growing  in  from  all  sides,  and  the  caterpillar's  nest 
is  in  abundance  all  over  the  orchard,  and  the  last  time  I  saw 
the  son,  a  man  forty-five  years  old,  he  was  throwing  dice  for 
the  drinks  in  a  low  down  groggery. 

I  have  spent  some  little  time  figuring  out  the  increase  and 
consumption  of  fruits,  berries  and  vegetables  in  the  last  twenty- 
five  years  in  proportion  to  the  population  of  the  United  States, 
and  I  am  satisfied  that  it  has  been  more  than  twenty  per  cent, 


MEXICAN  NATIONAL  MUSEUM.  3OI 

that  it  will  be  more  than  twenty  per  cent  in  the  next  ten  years, 
and  that  in  the  next  twenty-five  years  the  people  of  the  United 
States  will  live  on  one-half  of  the  meats  that  they  are  now 
living  on,  and  one-fourth  of  the  amount  they  were  living  on 
fifty  years  ago. 

That  the  average  American  farmer  eats  one-third  to  one- 
half  less  than  he  did  thirty  or  forty  to  fifty  years  ago  and 
that  we  as  a  people  are  eating  in  point  of  cost  twenty-five  per 
cent  less  than  we  did  twenty-five  years  ago>  is  a  generally  con- 
ceded fact.  However  strange  this  may  appear  to  my  reader,  I 
hazard  little  in  saying  that  if  he  will  but  stop  and  think  and 
then  talk  with  his  most  intelligent  friends,  my  statement  will 
be  confirmed  by  his  own  sphere  of  observation. 

I  have  elsewhere  stated  as  to  the  decrease  in  the  productive- 
ness of  the  soil  within  the  last  fifty  years.  I  am  satisfied  that 
in  the  Northern  "States  the  decrease  in  the  last  fifty  years  has 
been  more  than  forty  and  possibly  above  fifty  per  cent  in  all 
manner  of  farm  products  and  that  this  decrease  will  continue 
while  the  products  of  the  orchard,  though  they  have  decreased 
in  the  last  fifty  years,  will  greatly  increase. 

The  intrinsic  value  of  the  farm  products  has  also  decreased. 
The  value  of  a  bushel  of  corn  is  estimated  by  the  amount  of 
whisky  that  can  be  made  from  it,  more  than  by  the 
pounds  of  fat  it  will  make  in  a  hog  or  beef.  In  wheat  there 
is  a  less  depreciation  in  its  fattening  and  nourishing  qualities 
than  in  any  other  cereal. 

The  potato  is  larger  and  more  of  them  are  raised  in  the  hill 
when  properly  planted  in  good  soil,  but  the  power  of  strength- 
giving  food  is  less.  If  you  could  dig  back  down  in  the  cellar  or 
orchard  and  find  some  good  old  Louisiana  or  Jamaica  sugar 
that  was  made  fifty  years  ago  and  then  go  and  have  a  good 
chemist  analyze  it  and  compare  its  saccharine  force  with  that 
of  the  bleached  white  beet  sugar  of  today,  the  party  doing  it 
would  doubtless  be  so  surprised  at  the  result  as  to  fear  to  tell 


MEXICAN    NATIONAL  MUSEUM. 

f 

* 

the  truth  to  his  neighbors,  less  they  should  say  that  he  was  a  liar 
and  that  there  was  no  truth  in  him. 

The  fool — and  I  have  been  he  as  many  times  as  I  have 
hairs — who  buys  a  bottle  of  some  well  advertised  bitters  or 
patent  medicine  because  he  has  been  told  or  has  seen  printed 
in  some  advertisement  that  it  contains  t\venty-five  or  fifty  per 
cent  alcohol,  thinking  thereby,  that  he  is  getting  whisky  and 
medicine  combined  for  the  price  of  one,  no  doubt  would  con- 
tinue to  be  the  fool  he  is  if  he  were  told  the  truth  and  enlight- 
ened on  the  subject  of  what  twenty-five  or  fifty  per  cent  of 
alcohol  in  a  patent  medicine  or  bitters  means,  and  it  is  very 
possible  that  there  is  not  one  in  fifty  that  would  believe  the 
truth.  I  will  wager  that  there  is  not  one  in  five  thousand  of  the 
drinkers  and  users  of  this  stuff  who  understand  the  meaning  of 
the  expression  that  accompanies  the  analysis  of  all  this  accursed 
poison,  "twenty-five  per  cent  in  volume." 

If  I  undertook  to  explain  I  would  be  laughed  at  and  I  always 
prefer  to  have  the  laugh  on  the  other  fellow ;  therefore,  if  you 
would  be  made  wise  write  to  your  educator  and  ask  him  what 
this  means  and  to  explain  it  so  that  you  can  understand  it. 
I  will  volunteer  to  say  this  much,  however,  which  may  be  an 
eye  opener  to  my  reader  and  of  benefit  to  him.  When  you  buy 
a  stuff  said  to  contain  twenty-five  per  cent  alcohol,  do  not  think 
that  you  would  have  to  buy  four  bottles  to  get  one  bottle  of 
alcohol,  but  know  you  that  you  would  have  to  buy  twenty-five 
bottles  to  get  one  bottle  of  alcohol,  and  thus  "in  volume"  you 
get  it  and  not  in  quantity. 

People  are  deceived  often  in  a  way  that  is  beyond  the  ken 
of  man  to  solve  and  explain.  Many  years  ago,  when  I  was  a 
man  of  affairs  in  more  schemes  than  one  in  the  Lone  Star  State, 
I  thought  to  do  my  people  a  great  good  and  benefit  the  public 
at  large.  I  commenced  a  fight  on  the  Galveston  Wharf  Com- 
pany. This  I  did  not  do  because  I  was  interested  in  building  a 
railroad  from  the  North,  but  to  tell  the  honest  truth  about  it. 


MEXICAN   NATIONAL  MUSEUM.  303 

I  did  it  in  order  that  when  the  roads  were  completed  from  the 
North  the  cereals  of  the  Northwest  might  reach  Europe 
through  Galveston  which  it  could  not  do  and  pay  the  wharf- 
age at  that  time  exacted. 

Every  barrel  of  flour  that  came  to  Texas  by  way  of  the 
Galveston  port,  no  matter  whether  it  touched  the  wharf  or 
not — it  might  be  lightered  into  another  boat  that  took  it  on 
up  to  Houston  or  other  inland  points — paid  wharfage  of  twenty 
cents  all  the  same.  Forty  cents  for  every  barrel  of  whisky  or 
barrel  of  pork  and  proportionate  charges  for  everything  that 
came  in  or  out.  This  was  better  than  a  tub  mill  to  the  man 
who  owned  the  wharf  franchise  which  was  first  owned  by  the 
great  highwayman  of  the  sea,  buccaneer  and  pirate.  La  Fitte, 
who  in  his  day  owned  Galveston  Island. 

The  expose  I  published  in  a  paper  which  I  controlled  and 
that  had  the  largest  circulation  of  any  in  the  State  was  the 
sensation  of  the  day  and  great  interest  was  taken  therein  and 
greater  excitement  was  created  in  Galveston  than  was  ever 
known  before.  I  held  my  own  in  the  discussion  and  during  the 
fight  as  I  had  calculated  upon  holding  it. 

There  was  a  guttersnipe  newspaper  man  in  Galveston,  the 
like  of  whom  would  find  ready  employment  on  the  yellow 
journals  and  Police  Gazettes  of  today.  He  was  a  sarcastic 
writer  and  an  illustrator  in  the  way  of  caricature  pictures  that 
was  not  to  be  despised.  He  always  had  to  be  settled  with  and 
pulled  off  by  so  much  solid  cash.  The  wharf  people  employed 
him  to  do  me  up  and  paid  him  for  it  in  good  shape,  all  of  which 
he  proceeded  to  do  at  so  much  per  do.  Money  was  no  object  to 
the  Philistines  of  the  wharf  company  and  they  paid  this  man  a 
big  price  for  what  he  did  in  making  up  the  Thunderbolt,  as  the 
paper  was  termed. 

He  had  two  woodcut  engravings  representing  me  as  a 
carpet-bagger.  The  head  and  face  were  absolutely  perfect,  but 
the  fingers  and  feet  and  all  the  limbs  were  hideous.  The  in- 


304  MEXICAN   NATIONAL  MUSEUM. 

scriptions  on  the  carpet-bag  which  I  carried  in  my  left  hand 
and  on  my  cane  and  umbrella  in  my  right  hand  were  provoking. 
All  in  all  the  two  cuts  were  the  best  that  the  brainy  sketch  artist 
and  wood  engraver  could  produce,  and  the  twenty-five  thousand 
copies  of  the  Thunderbolt  with  this  in  it  made  me  an  object  of 
laughter  and  sympathy  more  than  one  to  be  despised,  because 
ninety-nine  per  cent  of  the  people  were  with  me  in  the  fight. 
I  knew  the.  man  who  did  the  work  and  lost  no  time  in  sending 
my  "good  man  Friday"  to  see  him  and  within  twenty-four 
hours  after  the  Thunderbolt  came  out  I  owned  the  woodcut  en- 
gravings. 

I  called  on  all  of  the  members  of  the  Galveston  Wharf  Com- 
pany with  whom  I  was  acquainted,  each  of  whom  upon  seeing 
me  wanted  to  know  if  I  had  seen  the  Thunderbolt.  With  an 
indifferent  nonchalant  air  I  said: 

"Yes,  and  I  am  surprised  at  the  interest  you  people  take  in 
that  paper  and  especially  in  that  edition." 

They  looked  surprised,  but  when  I  pulled  out  of  my  pocket 
the  two  woodcut  engravings  and  flashed  them  before  their  faces 
and  said  with  all  the  expression  I  could  use :  "I  paid  for  this 
work,  not  you."  The  editor  of  the  Thunderbolt  and  the  en- 
graver as  well  had  urgent  business  out  of  the  City  of  Galveston 
and  they  left  on  that  night's  boat.  The  man  who  undertakes 
to  win  out  by  fight  and  fight  only,  whether  it  be  a  battle  in 
the  field  of  horticulture,  agriculture,  in  the  forum  or  facing  a 
cannon,  and  who  uses  not  brains,  is  the  man  who  always 
loses. 

The  power  of  mind  over  matter  (now  do  not  raise  your 
hands  up  and  shout  that  I  am  a  Christian  Scientist  or  Spiritual- 
ist) is  not  properly  understood  and  appreciated  by  the  great 
masses  of  intelligent  people.  That  mind  controls  all  matter  and 
all  things  or  the  direction  thereof  few  could  question.  Dr. 
Messmer  first  proved  this  to  all  thinking  people.  It  is  a  force 
to  be  calculated  upon  and  which  none  but  fools  will  question. 


MEXICAN   NATIONAL  MUSEUM.  305 

The  greatest  inventors  and  statesmen  that  I  have  ever  had 
the  pleasure  and  honor  of  becoming  acquainted  with,  as  well 
as  the  great  jurists  and  lawyers  and  the  most  noted  disease- 
curing  physicians  that  I  have  ever  read  of  and  about,  do  as  did 
Moses  the  leader  of  the  Jews  when  he  went  unto  the  Mount, 
and  did  as  our  Savior  when  He  went  unto  the  Mount.  They 
are  those  who  commune  with  nature  and  with  themselves  and 
in  that  way  become  of  good  mind  and  are  enabled  to  control 
matters,  measures  and  men. 

The  unthinking  blatherskite  can  harangue  a  crowd  of  little 
thinking  blatherskites,  but  when  it  comes  to  the  directing  of 
great  affairs,  the  inaugurating  of  great  enterprises,  the  devel- 
oping of  great  plans,  the  inventing  of  great  machinery,  it 
takes  thought,  reflection,  meditation  and  much  of  it.  The  man 
who  works  to  work  and  without  an  object  in  view  is  a  dullard 
and  never  makes  two  blades  grow  where  one  formerly  grew. 


ANOTHER  WAR   CHAPTER. 


In  July,  1864,  I  bore  messages  from  President  Davis  in 
Richmond  to  the  commander  of  the  Trans-Mississippi  Depart- 
ment at  Shreveport,  La.  I  was  detained  by  General  Joseph  E. 
Johnston  in  Atlanta,  Ga.  He;  without  knowing  the  import- 
ance of  the  dispatch,  told  me  bluntly  that  I  could  go  no  farther 
until  he  so  ordered.  I  knew  that  Mr.  Davis  had  decided 
already  upon  removing  him,  though  I  dared  not  tell  it.  I  could 
easily  have  gone  on,  but  he  was  advised  the  Federals  had 
turned  his  left  flank  and  that  I  could  not  get  through.  I  made 
myself  as  comfortable  as  I  could  in  his  office,  when  at  a  late 
hour  in  the  night  a  party  of  ladies  called  on  him  and  very 
bluntly  demanded  to  know  whether  he  was  going  to  evacuate, 
fall  back,  retreat  and  let  the  Yankees  come  in  and  burn  the 
city,  as  they  had  all  other  towns  on  their  march  to  the  sea  so 
far.  He  listened  to  their  talk  very  patiently,  and  pointing  to  his 
hat  on  the  far  end  of  the  table,  said :  "Ladies,  if  my  hat  knew 
what  I  was  going  to  do,  I  would  burn  it."  They  retired  with- 
out any  further  adieu,  or  without  scarcely  bidding  the  general 
good-night. 

General  Joseph  E.  Johnston  was  one  o>f  the  great  men  of 
the  Confederacy,  and  but  for  Mr.  Davis'  ambition  to  be  the 
"whole  thing"  and  nothing  short  of  "it,"  Sherman  would  not 
have  reached  the  sea  when  he  did  o>r  in  the  way  he  did.  John- 
ston had  been  pulled  back  and  transferred  and  superseded  so 
often  that  the  people  had  lost  confidence  in  the  President,  as 
much  as  had  the  soldiers  lost  all  sorts  of  respect  for  him.  I 
well  know  that  this  will  not  sound  good  to  many  of  the  stay-at- 
homes  and  the  encumbrances  and  other  degenerated  descend- 
ants of  today  who  have  been  made  to  believe  that  Mr.  Jeff 

306 


ANOTHER  WAR  CHAPTER.  307 

Davis  was  a  second  George  Washington.  But  for  General 
Miles  having  ordered  shackles  on  him  in  his  prison  in  Fortress 
Monroe,  Davis  would  have  passed  away  and  beyond  recall. 
The  indignities  that  were  heaped  upon  him  on  this  occasion 
made  out  of  him  a  new  man  in  the  hearts  of  all  men  wor- 
shippers of  the  opposite  sex.  Davis  was  a  man  that  could  appear 
in  a  room  of  fifty  women  who  had  their  fifty  sweethearts  with 
them,  all  of  whom  would  be  dismissed  in  favor  of  Mr.  Davis. 

He  was,  to  me,  one  of  the  most  peculiar  and  unpleasant 
looking  men  I  ever  had  to  do  or  deal  with.  This  General  Miles 
proved  to  be  a  great  Indian  fighter  and  came  very  near  proving 
that  about  a  dozen  or  more  connected  with  the  War  Department 
in  Washington  should  have  been  taken  out  and  shot  for  feeding 
the  soldiers  in  Cuba  on  embalmed  beef.  This  might  have  been 
clone  but  for  the  fact  that  the  Southern  Democrats  hated  Miles 
so  badly  they  would  rather  have  seen  all  the  soldiers  in  Cuba 
sacrificed  to  Mammon  and  the  greed  of  the  commissary  officers 
and  contractors  than  to  have  seen  Miles  credited  with  having 
done  for  the  soldiers  as  he  aimed  to.  The  Democrats  talked  of 
making  Miles  president,  as  they  did  of  Ben  Butler  and  as  they 
tried  to  do  with  Horace  Greeley,  but  the  ironing  o>f  Jeff  Davis 
"cooked  his  goose"  and  in  my  mind  should  have  been  the  cause 
of  his  disgraceful  dismissal  from  the  United  States  service. 

Not  being  allowed  to  proceed  with  my  dispatches  to  the 
Trans-Mississippi  Department,  I  followed  a  reconnoitering 
party,  and  soon  found  myself  in  the  midst  of  the  hottest  battle 
that  I  had  ever  been  in,  and  though  badly  hurt,  I  was  much 
worse  scared. 

I  was  permitted  to  proceed  the  next  day  after  the  battle  at 
Atlanta,  Ga.,  in  a  very  badly  crippled  condition,  however,  and 
after  so  long  a  time  the  greatly  delayed  dispatches  were  received. 
Though  important,  I  knew  when  I  took  them  that  they  were  oi 
no  value,  for  the  orders  given  could  not  be  executed,  and 
though  several  attempts  were  made,  all  resulted  in  failure,  since 


308  ANOTHER  WAR  CHAPTER. 

the  people  living  west  of  the  Mississippi  had  about  come  to  the 
conclusion  and  settled  upon  it  as  a  fact  that  we  had  sent  enough 
soldiers  east  and  that  what  we  had  were  needed  at  home ;  and 
besides  all  this,  it  had  somehow  gotten  into  the  heads  of  a  great 
number  that  so  long  as  Mexico  lay  west  of  us,  west  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi River  was  a  much  better  place  or  country  to  move  from 
than  anywhere  east  of  it  would  be.  An  attempt  was  made  to 
move  six  thousand  infantry  across  the  Mississippi  River ;  they 
revolted.  A  cavalry  division  was  brought  to  the  field  oi  action 
and  was  encamped  along  side  of  the  infantry  that  had  refused 
to  move  further  towards  the  Mississippi  River.  That  night  no 
cavalryman  was  supposed  to  be  off  duty,  yet  when  daybreak 
came  and  orders  were  given  to  mount,  not  a  cavalryman's  sad- 
dle had  a  girth,  and  this  was  the  condition  of  every  soldier  from 
General  Wharton  down  to  the  lowest  private.  The  Federals 
got  wind  of  the  situation  and  they  were  concentrating  a  force 
that,  but  for  our  very  rapid  retreat,  would  have  resulted  in 
not  only  the  capturing  of  the  six  thousand  infantry  and  the 
three  thousand  cavalrymen,  but  also  the  four  thousand  Texas 
beeves  that  had  been  driven  nearby  and  were  being  herded  close 
by.  I  am  yet  very  well  acquainted  with  a  man  who  was  offered 
more  solid  gold  than  any  five  stout  negroes  could  carry  if  he 
would  guide  the  advance  division  of  the  Yankee  army  that 
started  in  to  capture  this  entire  army  of  poor,  hungry  and 
almost  naked  Confederates,  who  were  practically  out  of  am- 
munition and  were  as  near  a  disheartened  and  whipped  crowd 
of  men  as  ever  assembled  or  were  called  an  army.  I  started  to 
Richmond,  Va.,  with  a  report  from  the  general  commanding, 
accompanied  by  reports  made  to  him  from  his  six  subaltern 
commanders.  I  saved  my  scalp,  which  all  should  know  is  a 
very  precious,  valuable  and  highly  prized  piece  O'f  property  to 
any  scout,  guide  or  courier,  by  forwarding  the  report  on  and  in 
the  regular  way ;  for  at  this  time  I  was  apprised  of  what  was  in 


ANOTHER  WAR  CHAPTER.  309 

store  for  me,  which  I  have  referred  to  in  another  part  of  my 
book. 

I  heard  on  the  day  of  the  battle  of  Atlanta,  Ga.,  this  story ; 
I  give  it  for  what  it  was  worth, : 

An  old  negro  slave  who  had  joined  the  Yankee  army  was 
sent  to  an  outpost  and  was  in  a  fence  corner  as  the  random 
guns  commenced  firing.  As  the  fire  kept  growing  more  and 
more  rapid,  the  darky  thought  it  was  time  to  pray,  which  he 
did  as  follows :  "Now,  O  Massa  God,  if  you  ain't  wid  us, 
don't  be  agin'  us,  but,  Massa  God,  set  on  this  fence  and  see  the 
almightiest  fight  that  was  ever  fought  and  then  when  we  whip 
them  rebels  for  you,  we.  know  thou  wilt  be  with  us,  as  thou  art 
always  with  the  winning  side." 

I  have  always  thought  this  was  true,  because  it  was  told  by  a 
Yankee  prisoner  that  was  taken  that  day.  Years  after  this  bat- 
tle I  visited  this  place  and  without  guide  or  the  aid  of  anyone, 
I  located  all  the  most  hardly  contested  points  in  the  two  days' 
fight,  and  I  must  say  that  the  most  heroic,  valorous  and  bravely 
conducted  artillery  fight  I  had  ever  seen  was  that  done  by 
Howell's  battery  in  this  little  battle  near  Atlanta,  Ga. 

General  Joseph  E.  Johnston  was  removed  soon  enough  so 
as  not  to  interfere  seriously  with  the  further  advance  of  Sher- 
man in  his  march  to  the  sea.  General  Hood,  who,  by  the  way, 
was  a  brave  man  and  a  great  leader  of  men  when  he  was  on  the 
trail  of  a  great  director  and  general,  but  a  failure  when  it  came 
to  generalship,  was  sent  to  the  rear  to  molest  and  interfere  with 
the  tail  end  of  Sherman's  army,  a  move  which  cost  the  lives  of 
5,800  as  noble,  brave  and  chivalrous  soldiers  as  ever  obeyed 
orders. 

It  is  but  proper  for  me  to  refer  to  a  general  who  but  recently 
passed  away,  than  whom  there  never  lived  a  nobler  man,  a 
grander,  more  self-sacrificing,  pure  Christian  statesman  and 
general,  and  whose  bravery  was  equal  to  that  of  the  most  heroic 
that  commanded  any  corps  of  the  Confederate  army — General 


3IO  ANOTHER  WAR  CHAPTER. 

Longstreet.  He  may  have  equals,  but  no  peers  or  superiors. 
None  enjoyed  the  esteem,  confidence  and  love  of  the  people  of 
the  South  more  than  he. 

But  for  the  perfidy,  the  lying  deceit,  the  rascality  and 
treachery  of  the  editors  of  three  Southern  journals  that  I  will 
not  name,  Longstreet  would  have  died  with  as  much  glory  as 
Lee,  and  perhaps  infinitely  greater.  He  was  a  better  man  than 
Lee  ever  was  or  could  be. 

When  General  Grant  sought  to  more  thoroughly  reunite 
the  people  than  he  did  by  his  masterly  stroke  at  Appomattox, 
where  he  gave  Lee  such  terms  and  conditions  under  such  cir- 
cumstances and  surroundings  as  never  on  earth  did  any  con- 
quering general  give  a  fallen  foe,  by  appointing  to  the  most  im- 
portant offices  in  the  Southern  States  the  reconstructed  generals 
and  officers  of  the  late  "Lost  Cause,"  his  first  selection  fell  on 
Longstreet,  who  asked  the  President  for  a  few  days  to  consider, 
which  he  did  by  communicating  with  not  only  Lee,  Beauregard, 
Johnston,  Bragg,  E.  Kirby  Smith  and  more  than  twenty  other 
prominent  generals  and  many  politicians,  all  of  whom,  without 
one  single  exception,  advised  him  to  take  the  position,  and 
that  they  would  stand  by  him.  They  knew  Grant's  policy  and 
knew  something  was  coming  to  them  as  well  as  to  Longstreet. 
Longstreet  did  not  think  it  was  necessary  for  him  to  take  into 
his  confidence  the  three  leading  Southern  editors  who  had  not 
smelled  gunpowder  in  the  war,  who  were  bribed,  bought  up  by 
the  carpet-bag  ring  of  thcives  to  thus  oppose  the  appointment 
of  Southern  Generals  to  office,  and  who  should  have  been  shot 
the  morning  after  their  papers  came  out  in  such  terrific  edi- 
torials as  to  cause  all  of  those  generals  and  statesmen  to  desert 
Longstreet,  and,  like  cowards  that  they  were,  in  this  respect  at 
least,  feared  the  swinish  rabble's  hissing  more  than  they  had 
bravery  and  honor  to  stand  out  nobly  in  his  defence.  Thus  it 
was  that  Longstreet  was  made  to  bear  the  burden  of  false  accu- 
sation and  was  classed  with  that  class  of  thieves  and  villains 


ANOTHER  WAR  CHAPTER.  311 

that  the  people  of  the  South  knew  as  "scallywags,"  who  in  the 
most  part  were  members  of  the  committees  of  public  safety 
that  were  organized  in  all  districts  in  the  South.  I  know  very 
well  that  there  are  thousands  of  people  in  the  South  who  have 
abused  Long-street  only  from,  the  fact  that  they  did  not  know- 
why  he  was  induced  to  accept  the  office  he  did.  Longstreet 
would  have  fared  much  worse  than  he  did  at  the  hands  of  the 
people — the  rabble — of  the  South,,  but  for  an  order  from  Gen- 
eral Grant  sent  to  the  different  department  commanders  in  sub- 
stance : 

"You  shall  detail  a  competent  officer,  whose  duty  it  shall 
be  to  cause  a  copy  of  every  paper  published  in  your  district  to 
be  sent  to  your  headquarters.  These  papers  shall  be  carefully 
scanned  by  such  officer  and  all  articles  of  a  seditious  and  rebel- 
lious nature  shall  be  marked  and  sent  to  these  headquarters." 

The  three  papers  above  referred  to  became  lamb-like.  In 
Texas  we  had  sixty-four  papers  published,  and  though  I  had, 
in  common  with  all  others  that  had  served  in  any  capacity  in 
the  Confederate  army,  taken  the  oath  of  allegiance  and  thought 
war  was  over,  to  read  anyone  of  these  sixty-four  papers,  a  man 
fresh  down  from  the  clouds  would  imagine  that  Lincoln,  the  old 
rail  splitter,  and  Grant,  the  butcher  and  the  drunkard  and  the 
fool,  and  all  other  Federal  officers  and  men  in  position,  had 
been  not  only  whipped,  but  killed  or  driven  out  of  the  country. 
When  these  papers  received  this  order  from  Grant,  they  turned 
around  and  faced  the  other  way  and  became  truly  loyal  and 
penitent  lickspittles.  The  people  of  the  South  to  this  day  are 
dominated  more  than  any  other  people  on  earth  by  that  class 
of  editors  who  have  much  fun  with  themselves  when  they  get 
together  and  recount  how  they  have  fooled  the  poor  fools  that 
believe  all  they  say,  or  any  considerable  part  of  what  they 
say. 

I  was  prominently  brought  before  the  people  of  the  State 
of  Texas  by  reason  of  having  been  a  great  advocate  of  all 


312  ANOTHER  WAR  CHAPTER. 

manner  and  sorts  of  internal  improvements.  There  were  only 
two  papers  in  the  State  at  that  time  that  had  much  influence 
with  the  people  and  they  were  not  purchasable  with  the  price 
that  I  had  to  give,  but  when  the  parties  in  the  interest  purchased 
up  all  the  local  papers  in  the  State,  then  numbering  more  than 
a  hundred,  it  naturally  followed  that  these  two  papers  had  to 
follow  suit.  I  remember  in  fixing  the  price  of  the  different  men 
who  ran  papers  that  I  made  a  great  fool  of  myself,  for  the 
money  was  appropriated  and  another  man  disbursed  it  and  he 
showed  us  that  he  had  bought  them  for  less  than  one-half  the 
estimate  I  had  placed  on  them.  He  pocketed  the  difference. 
It  was  necessary  at  one  time  that  the  interest  I  represented 
should  have  about  one-third  of  the  lawyers  in  the  State  of 
Texas  in  its  employ  and  this  was  all  done  for  less  than  one- 
third  of  my  estimate,  and  they  were  all  happy.  The  parties 
that  paid  the  money  in  both  cases  lost  all  they  had  invested. 
If  asked  why  and  how,  I  would  reply  that  it  came  from  the 
fact  that  our  great  Creator  never  yet  created  one  man  so  smart 
but  that  there  was  another  created  a  little  smarter  and  more 
clever,  and  thus  it  has  been  from  the  beginning,  ever  has  been, 
"is  now,  and  ever  shall  be."  Say  you  that  this  is  but  the 
"survival  of  the  fittest?"  Then  may  the  friend  at  your  side 
ask,  "Which,  God  or  the  Devil  ?" 

I  am  not  the  only  man  that  discovered  in  old  age  that  it 
was  a  much  harder  matter  to  keep  money  after  one  had  made 
it  than  it  was  to  make  it,  and  that  to  keep  a  reputation  unsoiled 
and  spotless  before  the  world  is  one  of  the  impossible  things 
that  God  did  not  intend  a  man  should  aim  at  and  accomplish 
after  Lucifer  was  cast  out  of  heaven.  So  long  as  his  Majesty 
the  Devil  reigns  so  supremely  in  many  communities  and  indi- 
viduals as  he  does,  the  man  who  makes  money  and  keeps  it  or 
dies  leaving  behind  an  unsoiled  reputation  is  a  very  fortunate 
being,  and  his  memory  deserves  embalming. 

The  Confederate  Government   (so-called)   confiscated  all 


ANOTHER  WAR  CHAPTER.  313 

effects,  estates  and  holdings  of  any  person -who  lived  with  or  in 
any  way  aided  and  encouraged  its  enemies,  and  the  extent  of 
the  property  thus  passed  over  to  those  who  were  able  to  buy 
was  beyond  computing.  When  Uncle  Sam  got  in  the  saddle 
again,  he  did  some  confiscating,  and  in  order  to  relieve  the  indi- 
gent condition  of  the  people  in  the  South  as  much  as  possible, 
he  passed  what  was  known  as  a  General  Bankruptcy  Law.  All 
the  politicians  down  South  denounced  it  and  all  the  papers 
counseled  their  readers  not  to  pay  any  attention  to  it.  Now,  I 
know,  dear  reader,  that  if  I  were  to  tell  you  that  these  very 
devils  had  been  paid  by  wealthy,  moneyed  syndicates  to  pro- 
nounce against  this  law,  you  would  all  say  that  I  was  a  cruel 
and  bad  man,  so  I  will  leave  it  to  you  to  figure  out  to  suit  your- 
self when  I  state  that  the  property  sold  by  the  United  States 
Marshal  under  both  the  Confiscation  Act  and  the  General  Bank- 
ruptcy Act  did  not,  on  a  average  bring  one-twentieth  part  of 
its  value,  because  the  papers  and  the  politicians  had  told  the 
people  both  laws  were  unconstitutional,  and  the  people  did  not 
attend  the  sales,  and  there  was  only  one  man  there  to  do  any 
bidding,  and  he,  at  one  sale  in  Texas,  bought  lands  at  ten  cents 
an  acre  that  had  sold  for  as  much  as  one  hundred  dollars,  and  1 
know  one  very  near  and  dear  friend  who  bought  lands  at  from 
three  to  ten  cents  an  acre  that  he  sold  a  few  years  afterwards, 
some  as  high  as  fifty  dollars  an  acre,  and  none  for  less  than 
two  dollars.  He  took  advantage  of  the  people's  false  education, 
that  if  you  do  not  believe  the  politicians  and  editors  were  paid 
to  give  out,  I  surely  would  hate  to  become  your  guardian,  for 
I  have  had  enough  to  do  with  fools  in  my  day  to  make  my  heart 
ache. 

There  are  millions  of  people  who  from  being  honest  in  all 
their  acts,  deeds  and  thoughts,  judge  all  others  to  be  so.  We 
are  told  in  the  holy  book  that  justice  and  judgment  is  more 
acceptable  than  sacrifice.  The  judging  of  others  by  yourself 
and  what  I  would  do  if  I  were  in  the  other  fellow's  place  has 


314  ANOTHER  WAR  CHAPTER. 

cost  me  more  than  sacrifice.  Few  people  are  capable  of  judg- 
ing the  average  man  who  have  not  had  much  experience  with 
him.  "Hope  deferred  maketh  the  heart  sick,"  and  who  lives 
over  that  sickness  is  apt  to  have  the  stone  heart  ailment. 

The  "carpet-bagger"  referred  to  as  having  bribed  the  three 
editors — as  Greeley  says — were  Yankees  who  came  South  for 
no  other  purpose  than  to  hold  office  and  run  out  all  who,  like 
Longstreet,  had  been  in  the  Confederate  service.  They  had 
money  and  cunning,  and  the  South  had  just  such  traitors  as 
were  needed  to  do  their  devilish  work. 


MEXICO— CUBA. 


My  first  experiences  in  Mexico  were  in  1861,  after  serving 
six  months  as  a  Texas  ranger  under  Colonel  Ford  in  the  Rio 
Grande  country.  Having  become  convinced  I  was  not  cast  for 
a  soldier,  I  crossed  the  river  for  pastures  green  on  the  other 
side  and  Southwest  beyond  the  mountains.  I  felt  that  my 
knowledge  of  the  Mexican  character  with  the  power  to  "abolo 
spaniolo"  would  enable  me  to  make  a  "go."  I  had  not  pro- 
ceeded on  my  journey  many  leagues  when  I  was  overhauled 
by  a  band  of  Greaser  brigands,  who  divested  me  of  my  all, 
excepting  very  scant  raiment.  They  overlooked  a  gold  ring 
on  my  middle  finger,  but  for  which  I  must  have  starved  before 
reaching  the  place  whence  I  had  started,  Brownsville,  where, 
through  the  kindness  of  a  friend,  I  was  re-horsed  and  outfitted 
for  any  sort  of  service,  even  be  it  that  of  the  devil,  just  so  I 
was  given  an  opportunity  to  square  myself  with  the  race  of 
brown  hellions  that  had  robbed  me  of  my  all.  I  found  no  diffi- 
culty in  procuring  a  job  in  the  expedition  to  California  via 
New  Mexico  and  Arizona,  of  which  I  have  already  written. 

I  started  for  Mexico,  intending  to  make  my  way  down 
south  a  thousand  or  more  miles  to  where  the  properties  were 
situated  in  which  I  had  made  an  investment  four  years  previ- 
ous, that  were  to  have  made  me  a  multi-millionaire,  and  of 
which  I  have  written  in  the  past  pages,  which  see  and  read 
for  the  balance  of  this  story,  told  forty-two  years  afterwards. 
At  that  time  little  did  I  think  myself  unable  to  cope  with  any 
sort  of  obstacles,  difficulties  or  the  device  of  devils  that  might 
be  lying  in  wait  for  me.  My  mind  was  soon  disabused  and 
fixedly  and  very  permanently  settled  on  this  score,  when  I 
awoke  to  find  a  dozen  or  more  snake-eyed,  yellow  Mexican 

3iS 


3l6  MEXICO CUBA. 

demons  over  me.  I  had  had  Indian  experiences,  had  read  all 
sort  of  brigands',  pirates'  robbers'  and  highwaymen's  histories, 
but  this  knocked  all  that  sort  of  stuff  out  of  my  mind  quicker 
than  thoughts  otherwise  might  or  will  come  to  me  under  any 
other  conditions.  I  left  all  I  had  with  the  brigands,  and  when 
they  left  I  felt  much  as  did  a  corpse  who,  in  dying,  left  all  he 
had.  After  walking  and  running! — because  I  could  not  fly — 
over  a  road  I  had  traveled  on  horseback  three  days  in  one  day's 
time,  I  reach  a  town  where  my  go-Id  ring,  duly  pawned  with 
the  three-ball  broker,  soon  brought  my  empty  and  famishing 
stomach  relief;  first  by  devouring  a  watermelon  and  some 
jerked  dried  meat  that  had  been  drying  a  few  years  and  that 
was  as  hard  as  a  bone.  I  then  tackled-  a  hot  tamale,  hot  from 
pepper  more  than  from  any  fire  it  had  ever  come  in  contact 
with.  I  had  nearly  two  hundred  miles  yet  to  make  before 
reaching  the  border  of,  as  I  have  always  since  termed  it,  God's 
country,  though  it  was  in  the  southwestern  corner  of  Texas.  I 
was  six  days  going  on  horseback  and  had  reached  a  distance 
equal  to  about  three  hundred  of  our  miles.  I  was  about  three 
days  and  a  half  returning  on  foot.  I  have  come  across  but 
few  men  in  my  day  since  who  could  have  made  such  a  dis- 
tance over  such  a  country  in  any  shorter  time.  The  longest 
continuous  distance,  ho\vever,  that  I  ever  made,  was  from 
Waterproof  on  the  Mississippi  River  to  Alexandria  on  the  Red 
River  in  Louisiana,  which  I  covered  in  less  than  twenty-three 
hours  on  foot,  a  distance  of  more  than  ninety  miles.  From 
fearing  that  it  would  be  considered  a  disposition  on  my  part  to 
quit  the  country  and  the. noble  cause  that  soon  afterwards 
became  the  "lost  cause,"  I  told  no  one  of  my  rencounter  in  the 
land  of  the  Aztecs,  Spaniards,  negroes,  Indians,  and  all  else 
in  human  form  having  all  of  the  hellish  disposition  of  old 
Beelzebub  himself. 

Brigandage   has   been   ended   in   that   country   in   a  way 
peculiar  to  descendants  of  the  Spanish  Latin  races,  and  particu- 


MEXICO CUBA.  317 

larly  so,  when  the  breed  of  cutthroats  and  cruel,  bloodthirsty, 
pagan  barbarians  are  mixed  up  with  the  native  Aztec,  Indian, 
negro,  and  what  else  that  could  be  lower  and  more  degraded. 
Up  to  that  time  and  for  some  years  afterwards,  the  country 
was  overrun  by  bands  of  cutthroats  who  did  with  all  they 
came  in  contact  as  Joshua  told  the  children  of  Israel  to  do  with 
the  people  he  found  possessing  so  valuable  a  country  as  to 
incite  his  covetousness.  These  brigands  were  not  always  Mex- 
icans, and  I  have  been  told  by  people  who  ought  to  knoiw  that 
they  were,  for  the  most  part,  officered  by  people  formerly  from 
the  States.  If  I  were  to  stop  here  and  devote  pages  to  what  i 
have  been  told  about  Mexican  brigands  and  what  I  know  to  be 
true,  people  reading  would  say  that  it  was  impossible  that  any 
race  of  people  on  earth,  could  treat  a  fellow  man  as  they  often 
treated  their  victims.  No  account  ever  published  of  cruelty 
could  come  up  to  that  perpetrated  by  these  Mexican  brigands. 
In  Fox's  Book  of  Martyrs  we  see  pictures  of  how  th^  Chris- 
tians of  an  early  day  were  treated  on  the  rack  and  by  all 
methods  and  modes  of  torture  that  devils  could  devise,  all  of 
which  was  copied  after  and  improved  upon  by  these  accursed 
land  pirates.  I  saw  at  one  place  seven  of  their  victims 
hanging  up  by  the  heels  under  whom  had  been  built  a  slow 
fire,  and  who  had  been  tortured  in  every  manner  and  conciev- 
able  way.  I  have  seen  other  sights  too  horrible,  too  soul-sicken- 
ing for  me  to  undertake  to  describe. 

The  church,  the  priests,  monks,  and  what  else  you  may  be 
pleased  to  call  them,  owned  nearly  all  the  lands  and  valuable 
holdings  in  Mexico  acquired  by  their  selling  through  tickets  to 
heaven  to  the  thieves  and  cutthroats  after  death.  Many  will 
say  there  never  was  such  a  thing  as  indulgences  granted  by  the 
church  in  America.  I  know  better.  A  full,  free  pardon,  operat- 
ing in  the  name  of  the  great  God  and  the  further  consideration 
that  they  also  lifted  their  dead  ancestors  from  all  time  past  out 
of  purgatory,  was  granted  all  who  had  the  wherewith  to  enrich 


318  MEXICO CUBA. 

the  church,  and  especially  the  priests  who,  in  a  large  measure 
and  to  a  great  extent,  were  priests  here  today  but  brigands 
yonder  tomorrow.  Nothing  belonging  to  the  church  or  to  a 
priest  could  be  taxed;  therefore,  there  was  no  money  to  pay 
for  government,  and  there  being  no>  government  but  such  as 
above  described,  there  was  nothing  left  but  devil  meet  devil. 
There  was  nothing  owned  in  Mexico1  but  what  was  the  prop- 
erty of  either  the  church  or  brigands,  and  having  nothing  else 
to  conquer,  they  turned  to  conquering  themselves,  by  fighting 
each  other,  which  they  did  to  a  finish. 

"Know-nothingism"  had  its  run  in  the  States  between  1854 
and  '57,  and  accomplished  all  therein  that  God  had  intended  it 
should.  The  Mexican  brigands  took  the  same  question  up, 
only  in  another  form,  and  under  the  leadership  of  an  Irishman 
educated  for  the  priesthood,  but  who,  by  some  hook  or  crook, 
acquired  the  title  of  general,  a  revolution  was  brought  about 
in  the  northern  states  of  the  republic,  which  resulted  in  the 
confiscation  of  all  church  property,  and,  for  a  time,  the  exiling 
of  all  o<f  several  orders  of  Romanists.  This  General  Comer- 
fort  was  a  highly  educated,  refined  and  cultured  gentlemen 
who  had,  in  a  very  satisfactory  way,  captured  a  large  amount 
of  coin  of  the  realm  that  answered  him  to  good  purpose  in  his 
rebellion.  The  property  confiscated  from  the  church  and  taken 
from  the  priesthood  was  divided  amongst  the  people  in  all 
sorts  of  ways,  and  that  which  would  not  be  taken  by  anyone 
was  sold  afterwards  to  people  who  came  to  Mexico,  thinking 
all  Greasers  were  fools.  This  rebellion  grew,  and  all  Mexico  be- 
came a  unjt  on  the  church  confiscation  scheme,  and  the  priests, 
bishops,  etc.,  skedaddled.  The  conquest  of  Cortez  w,as,  in  a 
measure,  repeated  over  again,  only  in  another  form.  It  was  the 
Spaniards  that  were  catching  it  this  time.  This  spirit  of  con- 
fiscation grew  so  as  to  include  everything1  the  thieves  wanted, 
and  as  the  wild,  mad  mob  of  one  locality,  city  or  district  in- 
vaded another,  that  which  could  not  be  taken  away  was  burned, 


MEXICO CUBA.  319 

and  those  who  did  not  join  were  massacred.  Not  being  satis- 
fied, they  turned  to  confiscating  the  mines,  a  great  majority  of 
which  were  owned  by  English,  German,  Dutch,  Austrian  and 
French  investors.  This  they  did  with  a  high  hand,  massacreing 
the  operators  in  true  Spanish,  Indian,  barbarian  style.  The 
truth  has  never  been  told  respecting  the  crimes  committed  by 
these  wretched  hellions.  In  the  mining  districts  where  they 
overpowered  all  opposition  all  were  killed  that  could  not  flee 
away  to  the  mountains.  Vandalism  prevailed  on  all  sides  and 
a  regin  of  terror  existed  all  through  Mexico.  This  brought 
about  foreign  intervention  in  quick  order.  The  United  States 
would  have  asserted  the  Monroe  doctrine  by  adopting  the  pro- 
tectorate resolution  introduced  by  Senator  Sam  Houston,  of 
Texas,  and  thereby  have  kept  out  foreign  invasion,  but  the 
Yankee  abolitionists  feared  least  it  be  turned  in  as  so  much 
more  slave  territory,  as  Texas  had  been.  The  powers  waited 
for  the  United  States  to  act,  but,  thanks  be  to  our  Divine  Di- 
rector, it  did  not  act,  so  they  joined  hands  and  feared  no  harm 
from  the  United  States  because  of  the  war  of  secession  that  had 
just  started  between  the  States.  The  foreign  powers  agreed 
upon  Maxmilian,  an  Austrian  prince,  whom,  they  endowed  with 
imperial  power  and  sent  with  an  army  to  Mexico  to  do  the  re- 
storation act  and  set  up  a  more  stable  government.  He  accom- 
plished the  former,  and  would  have  been  successful  at  the  lat- 
ter but  from  his  having  placed  confidence  in  the  Mexicans  whom 
he  elevated  to  high  place,  power  and  position — just  as  we  are 
told  in  the  Bible  God  trusted  his  chief  lieutenant,  Lucifer,  who 
betrayed  and  sold  him  out  in  a  most  cruel  and  wicked  way. 
He  was  shot  and  his  government  overthrown ;  all  its  belongings 
— and  it  was  rich — were  seized,  and  the  mines  would  have  been 
re-confiscated  by  the  Mexicans  but  for  the  United  States  step- 
ping in  and  at  a  time  when  she  had  just  completed  a  big  job 
was  doubly  ready  to  engage  in  another.  The  war  had  just 
ended  and  forty  thousand  troops  were  rendezvoused  near  the 


32O  MEXICO CUBA. 

border  ready  for  a  forward  movement,  in  command  of  whom 
was  placed  General  Phil.  Sheridan,  whom  the  Mexicans  hated 
worse  than  the  devil  ever  hated  holy  water. 

About  sixteen  thousand  deserters  from  the  Confederate 
army  had  joined  Maxmilian's  colors  and  as  more — not  quite 
so  bad,  for  they  did  not  start  to  join  Maxmilian  until  after 
Lee  had  surrendered — were  on  their  way  south  in  Mexico. 
Had  Maxmilian  been  able  to  have  held  out  one  week  longer,  he 
would  have  been  relieved  by  the  advance  division  of  the  3000 
fighting  machines  from  Missouri  and  with  three  times  more  to 
follow,  he  could  have  whipped  all  Mexico,  and  but  for  a 
"hitch"  in  the  proceedings  and  a  delay  in  the  movement  made  by 
a  drunken  Confederate  general,  to  whom  this  move  was  en- 
trusted, Emperor  Maxmilian  would  not  have  been  shot  at 
Quentril,  Mexico.  Had  this  drunken  Confederate  not  spent 
two  weeks  at  the  Menger  House  in  San  Antonio  instead  of 
pushing  forward,  quite  another  chapter  would  have  been  writ- 
ten in  history.  I  believe  that  I  may  say  that  the  devil  has  ac- 
complished more  in  this  world  through  rum,  and  I  ofttimes 
think  for  good,  than  people  think. 

When  the  news  reached  the  ex-Confederates  from  Mis- 
souri that  Maxmilian  had  been  captured,  bag,  baggage,  army 
and  all,  and  that  he  had  been  shot,  they  soon  repented  of  their 
ways  and  joined  the  so-called  Mexican  government  under 
promise  of  big  pay.  This  settled  the  matter  as  to  a  govern- 
ment, and  in  the  spirit  of  come  and  be  good  like  us,  the  Mexi- 
can Czar — for  so  he  is  unto  this  day — issued  an  amnesty,  free 
forgiveness  and  pardon  to  all  brigands  for  all  past  acts  dat- 
ing from  the  birth  of  Adam,  and,  of  course,  carrying  with  it 
future  ones  if  not  caught  in  their  perpetration — if  they  would 
come  in  and  take  the  oath  of  allegiance  and  join  the  Mexican 
army  and  receive  a  commission  in  the  army  insuring  them  big 
pay.  An  thus  ended  the  old-fashioned  brigandage  in  Mex- 
ico, which  only  stepped  aside  to  give  way  for  the  coming  of 


MEXICO CUBA.  321 

» 

another  to  play  upon  the  world  in  the  name  of  government. 
But  for  the  ex-Confederates  that  joined  the  army  first,  no 
Mexican  brigand  would  have  come  in.  They  saw  their  finish. 

The  billions  and  billions  of  money  that  have  been  sent  to 
Mexico  in  one  way  and  another  in  the  past  fifty  years,  ten 
times  over  exceed  all  that  ever  was  or  ever  will  be  taken  out  of 
it,  and  this  I  say  notwithstanding  one  mine  is  credited  with 
having  produced  more  than  seven  hundred  million  dollars  since 
1847.  When  I  read  of  or  hear  anyone  say  anything  good  of 
Mexico,  I  set  him  down  as  a  "decoyed  duck,"  the  victim  of 
some  designing  "promoter,"  like  the  billy-goat  in  the  Chicago 
stock  yards  that  has  led  sheep  and  lambs  by  the  millions  into 
the  slaughter  pens  and  always  turns  around  on  the  flock  and 
bleats  "You  fools"  back  to  the  "con'd"  sheq>  that  see  their 
end,  the  door  through  which  all  go,  none  to  return. 

There  are  large  areas  in  Mexico  where  agriculture  pays 
great  dividends,  where  they  can  irrigate,  but  the  dividends  all 
go  for  the  water  rights;  there  are  also  boundless  extents  of 
grazing  lands  that,  if  the  grass  only  grew,  would  be  wealth- 
producing  ranches.  Thousands  of  mines  could  be  made  to 
pay,  but  two  conditions  prevent,  the  want  of  government  be- 
ing the  chief  one.  Mexico,  Cuba  and  all  other  countries  on 
this  globe  that  I  have  visited  and  am  acquainted  with  are  in 
the  same  condition  that  God  found  existing  when  he  gave 
Noah  a  pointer  on  the  flood  proposition  by  which  he  destroyed 
the  human  races.  All  countries  originally  settled  or  colonized 
by  the  Latin  races,  and  especially  the  Spaniards,  as  I  have  be- 
fore said,  have  no  future  before  them,  and  to  the  intelligent, 
honest  man,  as  well  as  the  ignorant  that  knows  a  little,  the 
question  must  ever  come  why  the  United  States  should,  with- 
out any  recompense  whatsoever  for  the  cost  of  the  war,  pay 
Spain  $20,000,000  for  the  Philippine  Islands  and  then  give 
$3,000,000  to  $30.000,000  besides  to  Cuba.  Why  was  this 
thus  ?  Who  dare  undertake  to  say  or  explain  it  away  any  more 


322  MEXICO CUBA. 

than  can  the  military  authorities  explain  away  the  embalmed 
beef  fr.aud  perpetrated  upon  the  American  army  by  contractors 
and  those  connected  with  the  quartermaster's  department?  The 
Anglo-Saxon  who  in  any  way  mixes  up  with  the  mongrel  races 
of  the  earth  or  throws  his  life  away  going  to  any  country  peo- 
pled by  these  breeds,  has  scant  chance  of  reaching  heaven 
when  he  dies. 

When  the  War  of  the  Rebellion,  or  between  the  States,  as 
it  is  called  by  many,  ended,  I  thought  much  of  the  New  South, 
as  it  was  termed  by  all  Northern  writers,  and  it  was  no  trick 
at  all  for  me  to  put  money  into  a  monthly  magazine  published 
in  Baltimore,  entitled  "The  New  South."  Harper's  and  all  the 
great  magazines  were  teeming  brimful  of  New  South  articles 
and  money  by  the  millions  was  being  brought  to  all  parts  of 
the  recently  reconstructed  section.  I  went  into  the  deal  with 
all  my  power  and  force,  but  came  out  worse  than  a  pauper, 
which  would  not  have  been  the  case  had  I  read  an  article  writ- 
ten by  an  old-fashioned,  level-headed,  wise,  close-observing 
Southern  gentleman  and  general  from  Georgia,  Hill  by  name. 

Some  Yankee  had  written  to  say  in  substance  that  in  a  few 
years  all  that  was  in  the  South  in  the  way  of  character,  man- 
ners, methods  and  ideas,  etc.,  would  scon  disappear,  forever 
and  a  day,  never  to  return.  General  Hill  jumped  on  the  writer 
as  a  terrier  dog  would  on  a  rat,  and  when  he  got  through  with 
the  subject,  there  was  nothing  left  to  say,  and  even  a  fool  would 
not  question  his  conclusions.  He  reviewed  history  from  the 
most  remote  times,  and  from  that  plainly  showed  that  no  con- 
queror ever  changed  the  conquered  in  all  or  any  considerable 
number  of  their  ways,  customs,  habits,  characters,  etc. ;  that  cli- 
mate, conditions  and  products  made  the  people  what  they  were, 
that  even  extermination  had  not  in  many  instances  changed  the 
habits,  manners  and  customs  of  the  people  from  what  they 
were.  He  stated  that  ten  or  fifty  newcomers  might  settle  in 
any  town  in  the  South  where  one  or  two  natives  lived, 


MEXICO CUBA.  323 

and  it  would  not  be  a  generation  of  time  before  all  became  like 
the  natives,  be  it  for  good  or  for  bad.  He  wound  up  his  article 
by  illustration  so  forcible  and  clever  as  to  convince  me  for  all 
time.  In  substance  it  was  that  a  young  ox  or  mule  when  first 
hitched  up,  wanted  to  go  but  was  not  long  in  exhausting  his 
strength  and  power  in  trying  to  go  at  a  faster  gait  than  the 
old  one  at  the  tongue  or  in  the  lead  would  allow  him  to  go,  and 
soon  he  settled  down  to  the  slow,  easy-going  gait  of  the  ox  or 
mule  working  at  the  tongue  of  the  wagon  o>r  in  the  lead  of  the 
team. 

When  one  contemplates  making  another  country  or  peo- 
ple over,  changing  the  leopard's  spots,  the  hog's  propensities  or 
the  dog's  ways,  a  little  quiet  voice,  that  of  reason  and  good 
sense,  ought  to  whisper  in  his  ear,  "Don't." 

The  only  way  is  by  the  fire,  flame,  and  sword  route,  that 
leaves  no  track,  trace  or  bridge  behind,  as  St.  Patrick  did,  it 
is  said,  with  the  sankes  in  old  Ireland.  The  commencing  with 
the  grandparents  to  raise  a  boy  aright  is  too  slow  a  process  to 
bring  dividends  for  one  of  this  century.  Work  on  good  ma- 
terial with  good  stock  is  the  only  way  to  do,  if  one  may  expect 
to  die  happy.  The  unexpected  often  comes,  sometimes  for 
good,  more  often  for  bad.  Trying  to  do  the  impossible  has 
caused  more  grief  to  good  people  than  is  possible  for  the  aver- 
age man  to  believe.  The  Mexican,  no  matter  what  his  people 
be  they  Negro,  Indian,  Portuguese,  Spanish,  French,  Dutch, 
Chinese,  Japanese  or  what-not — you  will  never  see  an  English 
Mexican  for  the  Anglo-Saxons  are  not  a  race  that  mixes  up 
with  the  lower  and  inferior^is  a  bigoted,  superstitious,  ignor- 
ant, vicious,  cruel  and  doubly  mean  type  of  humanity.  They 
are  capable  of  deceiving  the  elect  of  God.  I  was  talking  to  an 
army  officer  who  was  showing  me — for  so  much  per  show, 
for  they,  like  all  old  country  natives  and  our  own  Pullman 
porters,  are  up  to  tips — the  battlefield  of  Chepultq^ec,  and  in 
pointing  out  to  me  the  position  of  General  Scott's  assaulting 


326  MEXICO CUBA. 

cloned  for  using  the  expression,  go  in  belts  around  this  world 
from  east  to  west.  The  wise  men  that  saw  the  star  over 
Bethlehem  came  from  the  east.  There  is  a  limit  far  its  growth 
North  as  well  as  South.  There  is  no  hope  for  its  growth 
anywhere  near  the  Equator  upon  either  side.  If  I  were  writ- 
ing a  book  for  the  degenerate  races  of  God's  creation,  if  I  were 
seeking  favor  from  any  one  man,  or  party,  or  race  of  people,  if 
I  were  a  lying,  caterwauling  sycophant  and  hypocrite  instead 
of  being  what  I  am  and  seeking  to>  leave  the  world  better  than 
I  found  it,  I  would  not  write  as  I  have  and  told  the  truth,  as  I 
started  out  to  do  in  this  book. 

I  have  all  my  days  sought  to  benefit  the  community  in 
which  I  lived.  I  never  invested  a  dollar  or  engaged  in  any  en- 
terprise that  was  entirely  and  purely  selfish.  The  first  ques- 
tion with  me  has  been,  "Whom  will  it  benefit?"  And  I  can 
now  look  back  and  see  where  my  bread  was  cast  upon  waters 
in  which  foul  fish  devoured  it  and  on  stony  places  and  on  des- 
ert lands,  but  by  persevering  and  ever  looking  forward  to 
the  better  time  coming,  I  have  lived  to  reach  an  old  age,  as 
compared  with  thousands  of  my  compeers,  and  have  lived  so 
long  as  to  be  daily  receiving  expressions  of  thanks  from  all 
parts  of  the  world  for  the  good  that  I  have  done  the  expres- 
sors  and  from  my  having  done  as  no  other  man  in  my  day  has 
done  in  balking  wrong  and  evil  and  from  knowing  that  "Truth 
is  mightier  than  fiction,"  making  it  my  standard  and  armor, 
as  well  as  my  flag. 


A  CHAPTER  FOR  YOUNG  MEN. 


In  India  they  have  a  proverb  that  in  the  valley  the  roads 
travel  in  many  deviations ;  as  they  come  to  the  hills  and  moun- 
tains they  course  one  way,  all  meeting  at  the  top  of  the  moun- 
tain ;  and  in  Italy  it  was  taught  that  "Ignorance  is  the  mother 
of  veneration."  An  Anglo-Saxon  has  told  us  that  "a  little 
learning  is  a  dangerous  thing,"  and  Agrippa  said,  "Much 
learning  hath  made  thee  mad." 

In  my  day  I  have  had  some  experience  with  the  good 
advice  giver,  as  I  have  with  the  other  two  confidence  men — 
the  testimonial  good  character  letter  collector  and  the  religious 
hypocrite.  Some  people  may  think  an  intelligent  business  man 
may  be  deceived  by  the  first,  but  not.  so.  Who  undertakes  to 
give  advice  is  a  busybody  planning  trouble  for  others.  Let 
him  alone.  When  you  want  advice,  when  you  really  feel  you 
need  counsel  (this  condition  indicates  that  you  have  good 
sense),  pick  you  out  a  man  who  has  experience  in  that  you 
would  become  wrise  on  and  don't  go  to  him  as  a  beggar,  and 
much  less  if  you  were  going  to  start  something,  but  square 
yourself  up  and  say :  "Mr.  Jones,  I  am  in  the  dark ;  I  want 
light,  and  I  know  you  can  give  it  to  me,  and  I  want  to  pay 
you  for  your  time  and  consideration,  if  not  in  ready  cash  in 
hand  paid,  then  in  some  other  way  as  may  present."  Then 
state  your  case,  and  if  he  takes  the  matter  in  hand  you  can 
soon  see  whether  he  talks  honest  talk,  and  if  he  does,  do  you 
stand  by  him  like  a  brother  and  a  friend  and  show  him  that 
you  are  worthy  of  his  good  opinion.  Making  friends  and 
keeping  them,  is  the  secret  of  success ;  know  and  perform  that 
•and  the  milestones  to  honor,  glory,  wealth  and  true  happiness 
will  ever  column  your  way.  Never  undertake  to  ingratiate 

327 


328  A   CHAPTER  FOR  YOUNG  MEN. 

yourself  in  any  one's  good  graces  by  exhibiting  letters  given 
you  by  your  old  neighbors,  etc.,  until  you  have  become  well 
acquainted  with  the  party,  and  then  don't  tell  him  that  you 
had  asked  for  them.  Every  tub'now-a-days  stands  on  its  own 
bottom,  for  every  one  of  us  is  his  own  maker  of  name,  fame 
and  fortune.  If  you  have  a  matter  at  law,  don't  go  to  a  cheap 
old  chap  or  a  political  lawyer,  and  don't  think  that  because  the 
best  lawyer  in  your  place  has  received  a  few  five,  ten  or  fifty 
thousand  dollar  fees,  that  he  is  too  high-priced  for  you,  but  tell 
him  you  want  him  as  a  counselor,  and  that  you  are  not  now 
but  may  be  rich,  and  you  want  him  to  put  you  on  the  road,  or 
perhaps  keep  you  off  one  that  is  going  the  wrong  direction. 
Never  think  that  because  you  are  ignorant — for  we  are  all 
that — or  that  you  are  poor,  you  should  go  to*  ignorant  or  poor 
lawyers,  and  be  it  the  same  with  doctors ;  rather  consider  that 
the  smart  and  the  rich  ones  are  your  best  friends. 

Ever  remember  it's  not  so  much  the  price  you  pay  for 
advice  that  counts  hypocrites,  but  they  don't  "cut  much  ice." 
It's  the  church-house  hypocrite  that  you're  "looking  out 
after"  who  will  bring  you  the  best  dividends.  Watch 
the  man  who  in  any  way  professes  to  be  better  than  any  other 
man  is,  and  never  credit  beyond  one  meal,  not  another  until 
that  has  been  paid  for — the  converted,  reformed,  gambling, 
low-down  drunkard,  thief  and  highwayman !  So  sure  as  you 
do  you  will  repent  after  losses  never  to  be  made  good.  Let 
the  oth,er  fellow  look  after  that  sort  of  cattle;  don't  you  if 
you  expect  to  die  happy  and  leave  behind  a  good  name,  and 
those  who  will  revere  and  honor  you  for  good  deeds. 

I  have  lost  more  money,  time  and  patience  trying  to  do 
with  "devily-bugs"  than  ten  million  good  people  should, 
judged  by  results.  If  a  man  meets  me  or  says  by  his  dress  and 
appearance  as  well  as  by  words — or  more  so — that  he  has 
been  all  sorts  of  bad  men,  I  take  him  at  his  word  and  never 
ask  him  to  bring  me  any  proof.  God  "could  raise  up  seed 


A  CHAPTER   FOR  YdUNG  MEN.  329 

unto  Abraham  from  the  stones''  said  our  Savior,  but  don't  get 
into  the  fool  way  of  thinking  that  yoii  are  a  God  of  any  sort. 

Those  who  know  me  know  that  life  to  me  has  been  a  battle, 
with  but  few  skirmishes,  and  that  I  have  never  reniged — have 
ever  been  the  same,  never  was  of  moods.  Though  often  cast 
down  and  darkness  appeared  all  around,  my  everday,  common 
friends  knew  it  not;  I  went  to  a  friend  that  I  knew  to  be  a 
friend,  and  for  whom  I'd  do>  unto  as  he  had  unto  me.  All  men 
in  difficulties  and  troubles  naturally  want  to  confide  in  and  look 
for  consolation  from  some  one  in  whom  they  place  confidence. 
The  difficulty  is  in  your  placing  confidence  in  the  wrong  one. 
Ask  yourself,  Would  I  know  an  angel  from  a  devil  ?  and  don't 
be  too  easily  satisfied  in  an  answer. 

The  following  letter  will  explain  itself,  and  will  also  serve 
to  notify  all  of  my  future  intensions.  The  Great  Creator  and 
Director  of  all  good  has  not  given  me  the  trials  and  experi- 
ences, and  finally  the  accumulation  of  worldly  goods,  but  to 
enjoin  upon  me  as  did  our  Savior  in  illustrating  the  parable 
of  giving  the  shekels  of  silver,  and  as  unto  him  that  has  been 
freely  given  much  is  required,  there  is  yet  in  store  for  me  work, 
work  while  it  is  day. 

My  business  experience  teaches  that  when  undertaking  any 
enterprise  of  moment  calculated  to  bring  on  public  good,  one 
must  enlist  young  men  as  soldiers  for  the  fight,  and  have  old 
ones  enough  to  do  guard  duty  and  counsel  with.  I  shall  not 
engage  in  this  work  for  self-glory,  fame,  name  or  wealth,  for 
I  have  of  all  three  all  I  want.  I  want  to  teach  truth  to  the 
young  men  of  America. 

CHICAGO,  ILL.,  August  19,  1904. 
Miss  ' 

Woman's  Temple,  City. 
Esteemed  Madam: 

I  have  yours  of  last  Tuesday  on  my  table  on  my  return.  I 
see  by  yesterday's  Inter  Ocean  that  Mr.  has  been  struck 


328  A  CHAPTER  FOR  YOUNG  MEN. 

yourself  in  any  one's  good  graces  by  exhibiting  letters  given 
you  by  your  old  neighbors,  etc.,  until  you  have  become  well 
acquainted  with  the  party,  and  then  don't  tell  him  that  you 
had  asked  for  them.  Every  tub  now-a-days  stands  on  its  own 
bottom,  for  every  one  of  us  is  his  own  maker  of  name,  fame 
and  fortune.  If  you  have  a  matter  at  law,  don't  go  to  a  cheap 
old  chap  or  a  political  lawyer,  and  don't  think  that  because  the 
best  lawyer  in  your  place  has  received  a  few  five,  ten  or  fifty 
thousand  dollar  fees,  that  he  is  too  high-priced  for  you,  but  tell 
him  you  want  him  as  a  counselor,  and  that  you  are  not  now 
but  may  be  rich,  and  you  want  him  to  put  you  on  the  road,  or 
perhaps  keep  you  off  one  that  is  going  the  wrong  direction. 
Never  think  that  because  you  are  ignorant — for  we  are  all 
that — or  that  you  are  poor,  you  should  go  to  ignorant  or  poor 
lawyers,  and  be  it  the  same  with  doctors ;  rather  consider  that 
the  smart  and  the  rich  ones  are  your  best  friends. 

Ever  remember  it's  not  so  much  the  price  you  pay  for 
advice  that  counts  hypocrites,  but  they  don't  "cut  much  ice." 
It's  the  church-house  hypocrite  that  you're  "looking  out 
after"  who  will  bring  you  the  best  dividends.  Watch 
the  man  who  in  any  way  professes  to  be  better  than  any  other 
man  is,  and  never  credit  beyond  one  meal,  not  another  until 
that  has  been  paid  for — the  converted,  reformed,  gambling, 
low-down  drunkard,  thief  and  highwayman !  So  sure  as  you 
do  you  will  repent  after  losses  never  to  be  made  good.  Let 
the  other  fellow  look  after  that  sort  of  cattle;  don't  you  if 
you  expect  to  die  happy  and  leave  behind  a  good  name,  and 
those  who  will  revere  and  honor  you  for  good  deeds. 

I  have  lost  more  money,  time  and  patience  trying  to  do 
with  "devily-bugs"  than  ten  million  good  people  should, 
judged  by  results.  If  a  man  meets  me  or  says  by  his  dress  and 
appearance  as  well  as  by  words — or  more  so — that  he  has 
been  all  sorts  of  bad  men,  I  take  him  at  his  word  and  never 
ask  him  to  bring  me  any  proof.  God  "could  raise  up  seed 


A  CHAPTER   FOR  YdUNG  MEN.  329 

unto  Abraham  from  the  stones"  said  our  Savior,  bait  don't  get 
into,  the  fool  way  of  thinking  that  you  are  a  God  of  any  sort. 

Those  who  know  me  know  that  life  to  me  has  been  a  battle, 
with  but  few  skirmishes,  and  that  I  have  never  reniged — have 
ever  been  the  same,  never  was  of  moods.  Though  often  cast 
down  and  darkness  appeared  all  around,  my  everday,  common 
friends  knew  it  not;  I  went  to  a  friend  that  I  knew  to  be  a 
friend,  and  for  whom  I'd  do  unto  as  he  had  unto  me.  All  men 
in  difficulties  and  troubles  naturally  want  to  confide  in  and  look 
for  consolation  from  some  one  in  whom  they  place  confidence. 
The  difficulty  is  in  your  placing  confidence  in  the  wrong  one. 
Ask  yourself,  Would  I  know  an  angel  from  a  devil  ?  and  don't 
be  too  easily  satisfied  in  an  answer. 

The  following  letter  will  explain  itself,  and  will  also  serve 
to  notify  all  of  my  future  intensions.  The  Great  Creator  and 
Director  of  all  good  has  not  given  me  the  trials  and  experi- 
ences, and  finally  the  accumulation  of  worldly  goods,  but  to 
enjoin  upon  me  as  did  our  Savior  in  illustrating  the  parable 
of  giving  the  shekels  of  silver,  and  as  unto  him  that  has  been 
freely  given  much  is  required,  there  is  yet  in  store  for  me  work, 
work  while  it  is  day. 

My  business  experience  teaches  that  when  undertaking  any 
enterprise  of  moment  calculated  to  bring  on  public  good,  one 
must  enlist  young  men  as  soldiers  for  the  fight,  and  have  old 
ones  enough  to  do<  guard  duty  and  counsel  with.  I  shall  not 
engage  in  this  work  for  self-glory,  fame,  name  or  wealth,  for 
I  have  of  all  three  all  I  want.  I  want  to  teach  truth  to  the 
young  men  of  America. 

CHICAGO,  ILL.,  August  19,  1904. 
Miss  

Woman's  Temple,  City. 
Esteemed  Madam: 

I  have  yours  of  last  Tuesday  on  my  table  on  my  return.  I 
see  by  yesterday's  Inter  Ocean  that  Mr.  has  been  struck 


33°  A   CHAPTER  FOR  YOUNG  MEN. 

again  in  a  way  that  that  I  do  not  altogether  approve  of.  In 
order  to  make  myself  clear  with  you  and  your  friends,  I  beg 
to  make  a  statement  that  you  shall  be  at  liberty  to  use  in  any 
manner  whatsoever  you  please.  The  newspapers  have  pub- 
lished statements  that  were  not  correct,  and  one  or  two  as 
having  come  from  me,  and  I  am  all  but  positively  sure  that 

some  of  them  could  not  have  come  from  Mr.  ,  however 

much  indisposed  he  may  have  been.  Years  ago  I  knew  Mr. 
— ' —  well.  It  is  false  that  he  ever  sang  any  song  or  preached 
any  sermon  that  ever  converted  me,  or  could  have  done  so. 
My  attention  was  first  attracted  to  him  when,  at  a  great 
Masonic  banquet  in  aid  for  the  Calvert  sufferers,  then  but  a 
boy,  he  recited  a  poem. 

"He  heard  my  cry  of  distress," 

Mr.    converted,    remodeled,    reformed,    re-born,    came 

nearer  reaching  my  heart  of  hearts  than  any  other  living  mor- 
tal on  earth.  He  came  of  a  good  family — none  better.  His 
mother,  as  I  remember  her  very  distinctly,  was  a  queenly  and  a 
saintly  woman.  I  have  formed  many  acquaintances  in  my  life, 

but  never  have  I  yet  known  a  man  the  equal  of  Mr.  and 

had  his  reformation  and  re-birth  been  different  from  what  I 
for  years  feared  it  was,  and  as  I  made  up  my  mind  to  thor- 
oughly test  before  entering  intoi  any  great  and  long  business 
coonnections,  then  I  know  that  I  should  have  accomplished  the 
aim  of  my  life  before  my  passing  away  and  would  have  made 
it  possible  for  others  that  followed  me  to  accomplish  a  greater 
good  than  all  other  agencies  combined  are  accomplishing  to- 
day, and  this  I  say  with  all  due  respect  to  the  noble  and  grand 
work  that  your  life's  best  efforts  have  been  given  to. 

A  new  day  brings  new  duties,  and  I  saw  in  the  coming  of 
that  day — now  well  on  us — how,  with  the  all  but  matchless 
ability  of  Mr. ,  backed  by  the  proper  wherewithal,  a  last- 


A  CHAPTER  FOR  YOUNG  MEN.  331 

ing  and  durable  public  good  could  be  accomplished  as  in  no 
other  way.  My  aim  has  been,  for  many  years,  to'  reach  the 
boys  as  they  leave  the  common  schools  of  the  country.  Some 
wise  old  teacher  has  said  that  if  he  were  given  the  boy  until 
he  was  fourteen  years  old,  you  might  have  him  afterwards. 
I  have  found  that  at  that  age  the  devil  is  out  snaring  for  boys 
and  the  good  people  are  letting  the  boy  take  care  of  himself. 
If  I  were  to  be  asked  to  what  I  gave  the  greatest  credit  for  the 
little  of  good  that  I  have  been  to  this  world,  I  would  reply 
that  it  came  from  a  small  volume  entittled  "Graham's  Lec- 
tures to  Young  Men,"  twelve  in  number,  as  I  remember,  and, 
looking  forward  to  the  greatest  possible  good  I  could  do  my 
fellow  men  for  all  time  to  come,  I  have  aimed  to  place  these 
and  similar  lectures  fitted  for  this  age  in  which  we  live,  in  the 

hands  of  every  well-born  American  boy.     When   Mr.  

came  to  me  recently,  knowing  as  he  did  my  general  character 
and  wants,  and  stated  that  he  was  sick  o>f  politics  and  editorial 
work  and  that  he  wanted  to  engage  with  me  if  I  could  so 
shape  affairs,  I  was  greatly  delighted,  because  I  saw  in  him 
the  "Herald,"  the  "Tribune"  this  great  move  I  long  years 
have  contemplated.  Every  arrangement  had  been  made  for 
his  immediate  engaging  in  the  work  on  lines  that  I  had  care- 
fully drawn  from1  years  oif  surveying.  It  was  not  that  I  gave 
the  plan  away,  or  who  stated  the  amount  I  had  agreed  to  put 
out;  quite  on  the  other  hand,  it  was  I  who  charged  him,  as 
well  as  my  son,  to  let  no  one  know  what  we  were  going  into. 
With  a  heart  all  but  bowed  down  with  grief  and  sorrow 
at  this  failure,  and  with  a  feeling  of  the  greatest  sympathy  for 
the  man  who  has  brought  it  about.  I  still  stand  on  deck  pre- 
pared at  the  proper  time  to  proclaim  to  the  world  that  if  God 
spares  my  life,  the  boys  of  America,  its  rising  manhood,  shall 
yet  be  told  that  which  the  vile  politician,  the  harpy  of  destruc- 
tion, the  accursed  quack  doctor,  and  the  hellions  on  high- 


334  A  CHAPTER  FOR  YOUNG  MEN. 

Short  to  aid  me,  but  it  is  not  the  book  that  I  am  determined 
upon  publishing  for  the  young  men  and  boys  of  the  age.  In 
conclusion,  dear  madam,  permit  me  to  say  that  your  rejoicing 
shall  be  mine,  and  mine  shall  be  at  all  times,  when  I  shall  hear 
of  your  progress  in  the  noble  work  you  are  engaged  in,  and 
believe  me,  madam,  with  sentiments  of  the  highest  esteem, 

Yours  truly, 
THEOPHILUS  NOEL. 


ENGLAND. 


An  American  got  drunk  over  in  England  and  they  wrapped 
him  up  in  a  white  sheet  and  pi  need  him  in  a  graveyard.  When 
he  came  to  he  exclaimed,  "Resurrection  morn,  by  gum  and  an 
American  first  up !" 

I  was  reminded  of  this  on  my  first  trip  to  England,  when 
arising  at  my  usual  hour  in  the  morning,  5  A.  M.,  and  going 
out  on  the  street,  I  saw  no  one  moving.  I  had  to  walk  more 
than  an  hour  before  meeting  a  policeman,  who  seemed  as 
badly  frightened  at  me  as  1  was  "skeered"  at  him,  not  that  he 
was  a  bad  looking  man,  but  that  awful  "His-Royal-Majesty's- 
Highness  -  King  -  Edward-VII-by-the-Grace-of-God-King-of- 
England-Scotland-Ireland-Wales-and-Emperor  -  of  -  all  -  the- 
Inclies"  look  of  that  official  was  enough  to  "skeer"  any  good, 
innocent,  liberty-loving  Yankee. 

Politeness  is  more  universal  over  there  than  with  us,  at 
first  appearance,  if  not  to  the  end — the  end  will  come  if  you 
fail  to  "tip"  the  man  or  woman.  Money  makes  the  horse  go* 
there,  as  nothing  else  will.  Money  will  not  go  as  far  there  as 
with  us ;  so  don't  go  there  expecting  to  be  respectable  on  less 
than  is  required  of  guests  ar  or  in  all  first-class  conditions  in 
our  country,  then  add  twenty-five  per  cent  for  "tips,"  and 
remember  should  you  be  introduced — not  very  likely — to  his 
"August  Highness,"  much  less  any  of  his  flunkies,  not  to  for- 
get to  "tip"  the  right  party,  having  no  fears  as  to  results,  save 
and  except  you  don't. 

I  never  saw  in  all  my  acquaintance  with  negro  slavery  in 
the  South  such  servility  and  slinking  to  master  and  overseer, 
as  the  Englishman  displays  to  his  superiors,  a  servility  that 
an  American  loaths  and  abhors.  There  is  no  sociability 

335 


33$  ENGLAND. 

amongst  the  people.  They  may  be  honest  one  with  another; 
they  have  no  chance  to  prove  otherwise. 

The  rich  are  mighty  rich  and  the  poor  are  degradingly 
poor.  Think  of  three  sets  of  tenants  occupying  the  same  house, 
each  eight  hours,  and  this  for  all  life.  No  negro  cabin  down 
South  in  the  days  of  slave  iy  was  ever  so  wr^chedly  lone- 
some as  are  the  tenements  from  one  end  of  the  land  to  the 
other — agricultural  and  factory  districts  alike.  The  houses 
have  no  porches;  windows,  no  curtains;  no  yards,  no  grass, 
no  trees.  The  country  is  all  fenced  off  into  small  and  all- 
shaped  fields,  by  rock  walls.  There  is  but  little  else  than  grass 
grown — some  potatoes,  scarcely  any  fruit;  cattle  small,  sheep 
large,  horses  big,  lubberly  and  awkward. 

Few  people  cultivate  their  own  soil,  or  live  in  their  own 
houses.  The  average  farmer  is  an  ignorant,  slow  going,  poky 
dullard  that  has  no  ideas  of  a  future  and  cares  nothing  for 
others.  Two  American  farm  hands  with  a  light  eight-hun- 
dred-pound pony  and  a  light  wagon  will  haul  more  hay  and 
stack  it  in  ten  hours  than  six  Englishmen,  a  big  wagon,  three 
eighteen-hundred-pound  horses  will  haul  in  a  day's  time,  which 
is  fourteen  hours. 

The  laboring  classes  all  belong  to  unions,  which  teach  them 
that  the  proper  thing  to  do  is  not  to  do  what  the  employer 
wants  done.  This  has  driven  capital  to  America  and  to  Ger- 
many, for  which  reason  one  sees  little  on  sale  there  but  that  it 
comes  from  one  of  these  countries.  The  farm  renters  reasoned 
thusly:  "If  I  raise  a  crop  worth  twenty-five  dollars  per  acre, 
the  lord  gets  twelve  and  a  half,  so  if  I  raise  a  crop  only  half 
that  value,  'his  nibbs'  will  only  have  half  as  much  to  spree  and 
gamble  away."  The  factory  hand  reasons  the  same  way,  and 
as  a  consequence  the  workers  of  England,  Scotland,  Wales 
and  Ireland  are  the  poorest  paid  workers  on  earth  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  race.  The  low-down  serfs  have  no  rights  or 
property  that  his  lord,  much  less  his  king,  in  any  way  respects. 


ENGLAND.  337 

They  are  taught  to  and  do  believe  that  their  lord,  and  espe- 
cially their  king,  nor  any  of  his  family,  can  do  no  wrong,  and 
that  whatever  they  do  is  right.  To  illustrate:  From  the  car 
window  I  saw  a  party  of  fifty  or  more  well-mounted  men  and 
women  chasing  after  a  pack  of  twenty  or  more  hounds  which 
were  chasing  a  fox  or  deer — more  likely  nothing,  for  I  could 
see  no  animal  in  front  of  the  dogs.  They  jumped  over  the  rock 
walls  in  good  style,  through  the  fields  where  the  farmers  were 
haying,  who,  like  serfs,  fairly  flew  to  the  right  and  the  left 
out  of  the- way,  as  did  the  cattle,  hogs,  sheep,  chickens  and  chil- 
dren, while  the  chasers  plunged  over  the  fences,  through  the 
fields,  scattering  the  hay  that  was  already  in  shocks  and  win- 
rows,  destroying  patches  and  gardens,  growing  crops,  much 
more  than  a  hurricane  would.  I  remarked  to  the  gentleman, 
fellow  traveler  (prisoner),  who  had  been  locked  up  in  the  car 
compartment  with  me,  that,  "if  a  deer,  it  would  be  costly  by 
the  time  all  damages  were  paid."  His  reply  was  in  effect, 

"That   is   Lord  's   estate — his   park" — that   the  serfs 

would  receive  no  damages,  for  the  lord  can  do  no  wrong.  He 
did  not  say  "serfs,"  for  that  is  my  name  for  all  people  that 
stand  such  treatment.  A  lord's  estate  may  be  a  few  hundred  or 
many  thousand  acres,  all  of  which  may  be  and  generally  is 
under  the  highest  possible  state  of  cultivation ;  it  is  his  for  him- 
self and  friends  and  to  run  .over  when  and  as  often  as  he 
pleases. 

The  estates  are  often  large.  We  read  of  the  one  our  get- 
rich-quick  Carnegie  bought  in  Scotland,  containing  sixty  thou- 
sand acres  o>f  land,  which  would  be  nearly  thirty-six  miles 
across  either  way  if  a  square  body.  Now  on  this  estate  there 
may  be  five,  ten  or  twenty  thousand  farm  tenants  living,  none 
of  whom  are  any  more  considered  when  it  comes  to  the  ques- 
tion of  the  "lord's"  will,  wishes,  pay,  profits  or  pleasures  than 
my  coach  dog  Dewey  is  consulted  as  to  my  carriage  drive,  or 
the  road  I  may  take.  I  was  told  that  where  the  lord  received 


338  ENGLAND. 

an  annual  rental  of  froin  ten  to  thirty  dollars  per  acre,  up  to 
ten  years  ago,  they  now  receive  only  from  two  to  eight  which 
pays  only  from  two  to  five  per  cent  on  their  properties,  taxed 
value — wherefore  the  lords,  earls,  dukes  and  princes  are  form- 
ing a  union — a  league — to  force  the  Government  to  buy  their 
land  holdings,  as  it  has  done  in  Ireland,  pay  for  the  same  in 
forty  years  two  per  cent  bonds,  then  sell  the  land  in  small  lots 
to  the  peasantry  (serfs).  This  would  be  the  means  of  elevat- 
ing England,  if  the  poor,  long  oppressed  and  downtrodden 
serfs  could  only  be  educated  up  to  the  religion  of  personal 
ownership  of  home,  land  and  cattle.  This  I  do  not  believe  is 
possible  any  more  with  the  English  than  with  the  Mexican, 
the  greatest  difficulty  being  in  the  fact  that  for  many  genera- 
tions, the  first  born,  the  best  and  brightest  of  all  the  land,  left 
home  early  for  service  in  other  lands  and  countries,  for  other 
kings  and  princes,  leaving  only  the  old,  feeble  in  mind  and 
body,  at  home  whose  progeny  for  the  past  several  generations 
has  greatly  fallen  off  from  what  it  was  in  times  beyond 
recall. 

An  old  man  (92),  born  in  Ireland,  returned  on  the  ship 
with  me.  He  came  to  America  in  1848,  after  helping  in  the 
building  of  the  Illinois  and  Michigan  Canal,  settled  near  St. 
Louis  and  grew  up  with  the  country  and  from  being  an  hon- 
est, industrious  and  sober  man,  a  close  observer,  accumulated 
great  wealth.  In  his  manners  and  habits  he  was  as  plain  as 
an  old  shoe  and  Irish  to  the  backbone — a  man  who  made 
friends,  and  money  as  well.  He  had  spent  five  months  in  vis- 
iting his  old  home  and  in  traveling  all  over  the  Isle,  allowing 
nothing  to  escape  his  observation.  He  had  been  away  for 
more  than  half  a  century.  That  I  and  his  other  fellow  pas- 
sengers became  interested  and  instructed  by  his  recounting 
his  experience,  his  disappointments  and  his  funs,  puns  and 
jokes  may  well  pass  without  saying. 

He  told  us  that  no  one  would  have  made  him  believe  as  to 


ENGLAND.  339 

the  great  changes  that  had  overcome  and  come  over  his  country 
and  people.  The  boy  of  his  day  and  country  was  as  the  boy  of 
my  day  and  country ;  where,  then,  a  boy's  or  man's  ration  was  a 
boiled  potato  or  two  with  a  cup  of  milk,  now  it  (the  ration) 
came  out  of  a  tin  can,  the  empties  making  a  pile  larger  than  the 
old  cabin,  that  was  built  by  honest  hands.  The  result  being  that 
the  Irishman  of  today  was  becoming  more  and  more  of  a  poor 
consumptive  weakling,  a  Miss  Sissy,  a  degenerate  of  spring  ot 
once  noble  stalwart,  generous  and  pure  people.  This  he  said  in 
his  way — I'm  telling  it  in  my  way — was  the  case  in  England, 
Scotland  and  Wales  as  well  as  in  Ireland. 

He  told  of  the  people's  abject  poverty  as  compared  with 
fifty  years  ago,  and  of  the  departure  of  all  that  grand  old  style, 
generous  hospitality,  and  it  seemed  to  me  that  he  was  talking 
of  my  people  of  the  South  and  their  changes  from  riches, 
grandeur,  nobility  and  hospitality  to  the  very  opposite. 

He  told  of  how  the  rich  had  grown  richer  and  the  poor 
poorer,  the  wise  more  wise  and  the  ignorant  more  benighted ; 
and  thus  I  came  to  realize  more  fully  the  changes  that  are  tak- 
ing place  the  world  over,  day  by  day,  that  but  few  people  make 
note  of,  or  profit  by.  One  race,  nation,  or  people  rise  to  rule 
for  a  time  and  then  its  time  comes  to  pass  away,  to  be  suc- 
ceeded by  the  very  one  it  most  despised.  Talk  we  as  we  may 
about  the  Paganism  of  the  past  and  of  the  present  and  of  the 
religions  and  faiths  people  love  to  die  by,  but  when  we  look 
to  the  West  to  see  what  our  fathers,  and  we  in  our  own  short 
recollection,  looked  to  the  East  to  see,  and  there  view  half 
a  million  men  in  battle  array,  we  hear  in  its  din,  and  see  in  its 
dark  smoke  the  Pagan's  rapid  approach  to  all  that  Christian 
civilization  has  brought  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  and  vastly  more. 
It  was  but  as  yesterday  that  the  Russians  were  not  considered 
quite  half  civilized — a  barbarian,  worse  than  a  Roman  Pagan 
race ;  while  the  young  man  of  today  can  tell  of  what  his  teacher 


34°  ENGLAND. 

taught  as  to  the  uncivilized,  worse  than  jungle  barbarian, 
human-sacrificing,  devil-born  Pagan,  was  the  Japanese. 

What  conditions  and  what  peoples  preceded  the  dark  ages? 
What  peoples  may  succeed  our  age  of  enlightenment? 

With  the  influx  of  emigrants  from  all  the  hell  holes  of  the 
earth,  and  with  it  the  spirit  of  anarchy,  the  disregard  of  all 
laws,  and  rights  of  man,  who  may  not  have  fears  as  to  who 
will  be  our  successors? 

A  great  national  event — :i  live  stock  show — was  on  when  I 
first  visited  London,  and,  though  I  had  telephoned  for  one,  no 
room  was  to  be  had  at  the  hotel.  By  "tipping"  a  lackey  with 
a  half  sovereign  ($2.50)  I  procured  a  room  in  "a  private 
hotel,"  where  I  had  to  pay  double  rates  because  of  "necessity," 
as  the  keeper  told  me.  I  was  the  first  American  or  statesman, 
as  they  called  me,  who  had  ever  slept  in  the  house,  that  had 
been  "a  private  hotel"  for  more  generations  than  there  are  peas 
in  a  pod,  and  kept  continuously  by  the  same  family  descendants 
of  perhaps  some  Roman  invader.  I  was  an  object  of  all  sorts 
of  attention  and  soon  found  myself  on  good  terms  with  six 
gentlemen,  the  youngest  over  sixty-five,  with  their  wives ;  one 
a  rector  of  a  nearby  church  of  ten  thousand  communicants. 
He  was  aided  by  eleven  assistant  rectors.  He  had  been  rector 
for  forty-six  years.  I  was  the  first  "statesman"  he  had  ever 
had  the  honor  and  pleasure  of  knowing.  These  were  his  words. 
It  was  less  than  three  miles  to  the  world-wide  known  "Billings- 
gate" fish  market,  where  I  had  supposed  every  one  of  the  seven 
million  inhabitants  of  London  had  been  often.  He  told  me 
he  had  never  been  there  or  to  the  meat  market  or  the  vegetable 
or  fruit  market  that  lay  between  him  and  the  fish  market.  He 
had  a  relative  in  the  States  and  told  me  his  name  and  asked  if 
I  knew  him.  The  other  four  gentlemen  and  their  wives  had 
lived  there  all  their  lives,  each  rearing  large  families,  all  grown 
up,  gone  away,  and  it  seemed  not  to  concern  them  as  to  where 
they  had  gone  or  what  they  were  doing.  But  two  of  these  four 


ENGLAND.  J4I 

— eight — had  never  been  out  of  the  city  of  London.  One  had 
been  on  an  excursion  up  the  Thames  forty  years  ago ;  another 
had  been  on  a  voyage  to  India  and  back.  Not  one  of  the  ten 
or  twelve  had  been  inside  of  Hyde  Park,  or  any  of  the  great 
public  buildings  or  churches,  except  the  church  they  belonged 
to.  They  were  of  the  well-to-do  class  between  the  aristocracy 
and  the  drawers  of  water  and  hewers  of  wood.  They  had 
books,  magazines  and  papers  in  numbers.  I  told  them  a  few 
mild  ones  about  my  country  so  as  to  draw  them  out  about 
theirs.  I  found  out  that  thev  did  not  know  as  much  about 

•/ 

their  own  country  as  a  ten-year-old  bootblack  born  in  Greece, 
shining  boots  and  selling  papers  on  the  streets  of  Chicago, 
knows  of  his  adopted  land.  I  lost  no  time  in  giving  them  a 
few  liners,  that  established  my  reputation  beyond  recall,  or  the 
envy  of  any  one  who  cares  a  cuss  for  such  people's  opinions. 

These  people  were  representatives  of  the  English  better 
class,  between  the  two  lower  and  the  three  or  four  upper  ones 
that  look  down  upon  them,  as  they  do  on  the  two  lower.  It 
was  worse,  if  not  greater  than  sacrilegious  for  me  to  refer  to 
their  king  as  being  one  of  the  millions  that  were  as  good  if  not 
better,  and  when  in  bidding  them  farewell,  a  hope  that  some 
day  we  might  meet  in  a  country — the  United  States — where 
they  would  feel  themselves  just  as  good,  if  not  vastly  superior 
to  any  prince,  king  or  potentate,  they  drew  the  line,  and  in 
such  a  way  as  to  show  me  how  true  the  scriptures  are  in  the 
hog,  dog  and  leopard  parables. 

My  one-day  traveling  companion  was  a  barrister,  an 
English  lawyer,  a  man  of  culture  and  much  travel,  a  close 
observer,  who  knew  a  thing  cr  two  and  was  not  afraid  to  tell 
it  when  satisfied,  as  he  soon  was,  that  I  was  not  a  Scotland 
Yards  man,  who  are  to  be  found  wherever  one  may  go.  They 
are  the  king's  detectives,  and  woe  befall  the  man,  be  he  from 
any  land  or  country,  who  is  heard  to  make  a  remark  that  can 
be  construed  in  the  least  disrespectful  to  his  Royal  Majesty's 


342  ENGLAND. 

rights  of  eminent  domain  over  land,  sea,  man  or  brute.  In 
this  matter  every  subject  is  a  policeman  to  report  what  he  may 
hear  said  derogatory  to  any  satrap  or  underling  in  the  pay  or 
favor  of  the  one  who  can  do  no  wrong. 

That  there  is  a  degeneracv  rapidly  growing  on  the  great 
masses  of  the  subjects  of  Great  Britain  no  one  will  question 
who  has  sprung  from  the  race  O'f  Britons,  as  I  did,  and  who 
has  learned  to  admire  their  great  valor,  nobleness  of  character 
and  love  for  human  liberty  in  ages  past,  and  will  then  see  it  as 
it  is  today,  I  could  not  have  believed  from  hearsay.  The  student 
of  politics  would  find  no  richer  fields  to  explore  or  dig  into,  if, 
after  the  study  of  all  that  is  foxy,  cunning  and  wickedly  cruel 
in  perverted  human  nature,  he  should  take  in  England. 

That  the  Isles  of  Briton  have  given  to  the  world  its  greatest 
workers  in  all  lines  that  have  tended  to  the  uplifting  of  the 
human  race, .none  will  question,  and  if  the  same  freedom  was 
given  to  its  people  today  that  we  enjoy,  we  would  not  be  so 
near  being  the  whole  thing  a?  we  are. 

Elsewhere  I  have  told  of  how  the  northern  slave  holding 
states  of  the  South,  produced  such  stout  and  healthy  negroes 
and  mules  for  the  cotton  and  cane  fields,  and  how  they  have 
furnished  this  Government  with  its  most  brainy,  noble  patriots 
and  statesmen,  and  so  with  the  British  Isles  as  to  the  world. 

A  voyage  to  England,  Europe,  Asia  and  Africa  should 
never  be  taken  alone,  or  by  anyone  who  has  little  means.  If 
the  ticket  seller  or  excursion  man  tells  you  five  hundred  dol- 
lars, you  say  fifteen,  and  then  if  you  don't  gamble  or  get  drunk 
and  locked  up,  you  may  not  have  to  weep  alone  in  a  friendless 
foreign  country  until  friends  from  home  send  you  good  words 
in  the  way  of  cash,. 

Who  travels  in  Eastern  countries  and  fails  to  bring  back 
lots  of  things  and  oi  all  sorts,  fails  only  from  not  having  the 
money  to  buy. 

I  have  often  pitied  fellow  travelers — and  the  more  so  that 


ENGLAND.  343 

I  have  been  there  myself,  oftener  than  otherwise — who  felt 
like  a  thirty-cent  piece  from  not  having  the  wherewith  to  buy 
the  soul-captivating  toy,  ay!  a  good,  square,  hungry-stomach- 
satisfying  meal.  In  traveling  th/e  old  country,  no  matter  how 
smart  your  mother  has  made  you  believe  yourself  to  be,  just 
put  it  down  so  as  not  toi  forget  it  even  for  a  moment,  that  you 
are  less  than  half  way  smart  enough  to  deal  with  the  fakirs 
lining  the  way  and  all  the  way.  The  best  way  is  to  travel  with 
no  smart  woman.  A  little  boy  was  asked  if  he  did  not  wish 
that  he  could  have  all  the  ice  cream  he  could  eat,  and  he 
answered,  "It  was  never  made."  Just  so,  the  man  who  can 
travel  with  a  smart  woman  and  hold  his  own,  he  was  never 
made.  I  was  made  sot  as  to  profit  by  the  experience  of  others, 
wherefore  I  am  able  to  give  the  above  advice  with  emphasis. 
Women  make  a  better  job  out  of  it  traveling  alone  than  men  do. 
It  is  easier  for  them  to  find  fools  than  it  is  for  men.  Mark 
-Twain  says,  "Be  good  and  you  will  be  lonesome."  To  travel 
alone  in  foreign  countries  you  are  apt  to  be  the  latter  and  very 
devilish. 


CALIFORNIA  — WEST  COAST. 


From  reading  Lewis  and  Clark's  Journal,  as  well  as  from 
being  so  inclined  by  birthright,  my  eyes,  thoughts  and  hopes 
were  turned  Westward,  and  its  star  has  been  my  guiding  way 
often  into  trials,  troubles  and  tribulations  mountains  high. 

Years  ago  the  great  people  of  Missouri  erected  in  St.  Louis 
an  heroic  bronze  statue  to  the  honor  and  memory  of  one  who 
was  not  only  their  greatest  statesman,  but  one  of  our  entire 
nation's  as  well — the  Hon.  Thomas  H.  Bent  on,  who  served  his 
State  in  the  United  States  Senate  for  more  than  thirty  years 
consecutively.  His  "thirty  years  in  the  United  States  Senate'' 
has  no  equal  in  any  volume  published  giving  the  history  of 
events  so  interwoven  in  the  rapid  growth  of  our  country  from 
Ocean  to  Ocean,  and  especially  the  great  West.  No  warrior  or 
statesman  has  ever  had  erected  to  his  memory  a  monument  the 
equal  of  this,  as  all  say  who  have  seen  the  most  of  them. 
Benton  it  was  who  did  more  than  any  one  for  the  education 
of  the  people  of  the  world  respecting  the  West  and  in  the  face 
of  an  opposition  that  at  times  was  terrific,  waged  by  the  con- 
tractors in  the  interest  of  Eastern  enterprises  that  wanted  it 
all.  General  Fremont,  the  "Pathfinder,"  was  Bentoii's  son-in- 
law  and  had  for  a  wife  one  of  the  most  noble  and  brainy 
women — a  worthy  descendant  of  as  noble  a  sire  as  God  has 
graced  this  world  with.  This  monument  represents  Benton 
speaking  in  the  United  States  Senate  in  1832,  holding  in  his 
left  hand  a  scroll  map,  pointing  with  his  right  to  the  West  and 
toward  the  setting  sun,  saying,  "This  is  the  way  to  the  East," 
or  this  is  the  way  to  India.  This  speech  struck  the  people  of 
our  country  as  did  St.  Paul's  to  the  Athenians,  when  he  told 
them  that  he  came  to  make  known  to  them  "the  unknoivn  God 

344 


CALIFORNIA WEST    COAST.  345 

that  ye  ignorantly  worship."  I  see  in  a  paper  of  today  that 
the  largest  commercial  steamship  ever  built  is  now  being 
finished  to  take  freight  and  passengers  from  our  west  coast  via 
Benton's  route  to  the  East,  China,  Japan,  India  and  even 
Africa,  and  it  is  but  one  of  many  more  being  built  for  this 
route.  Methinks  it's  next  to  Joshua's  ordering  the  sun  to  stand 
still — any  way  one  loses'  a  day  by  going  that  way,  as  did  his 
enemies,  as  related  in  the  Bible. 

I've  crossed  this  trail  and  then  the  rail  tracks  time  and 
again  going  West  to  reach  the  East,  and  did  I  have  the  power 
to  write  of  the  wonderful  transformation  it  has  brought  to  the 
people  of  this  world  in  all  that  they  once  thought  impossible, 
I  would  devote  pages  to  so  doing,  that  my  readers  might  again 
be  impressed — as  I  have  elsewhere  sought  to — with  the  wond- 
rous world's  works  I  and  my  associates  in  our  age  and  genera- 
tion have  done,  a  story,  a  truth,  a  song  no  American  will  ever 
be  tired  of  hearing.  As  an  illustration  as  to  my  part  in  the 
work  I  may  cite  that  on  my  return  home  from,  a  long  voyage, 
my  friends  and  neighbors  gave  a  banquet  and  reception,  and 
after  replying  to  speeches  of  welcome  my  little  tot  o>f  a  grand- 
daughter came  toddling  up  with  an  armful  of  roses.  Taking 
her  on  my  lap,  she  said  in  a  whisper,  "I  done  something  too, 
didn't  me  grandpap?" 

The  millions  and  billions  end  trillions  of  wealth  the  West 
in  general  and  particularly  the  California  coast  has  added  to 
the  world  with  its  millions  of  happy  homes  is  too  well  known 
of  to  need  enlarging  upon  by  me.  Its  great  future  can  only 
be  surmised  by  the  Bentons  of  today. 

I  might  fill  pages  of  matter  relating  to  the  West  of  today, 
but  why  should  I  in  view  of  the  fact  that  all  having  a  desire 
to  know  of  it  can  go  and  see  for  themselves  with  but  a  tithe  of 
'the  exertion  and  a  fraction  of  cost  as  compared  with  my  first 
visit?  And  now  for  a  few  pertinent  and  practical  words  to 
the  reader  that  will  be  of  future  use  and  value  in  exact  pro- 


346  CALIFORNIA — WEST   COAST. 

portion  as  he  may  have  good  sense  to'  judge  the  good  from 
the  bad,  and  that  no  one  but  real  estate  men  and  ticket  agents 
will  cuss  at.  When  you  read  of  any  country  offering  great 
inducements  to  immigrants,  don't  believe  a  word,  but  go  and 
see  before  selling  out,  as  my  father  did,  then  don't  believe  a 
thing  you  see  until  you  have  both  and  all  sides  of  the  thing. 
Don't  think  you  are  even  halt  smart  enough  to  judge  of  any 
country  or  place  by  what  you  see  at  first,  much  less  by  what 
you  hear.  Stay  for  at  least  one  year,  so  as  to  see  all  the  seasons 
before  parting  with,  one  cent  of  your  money  more  than  enough 
to  keep  from  hunger  and  want.  Few  have  had  more  expe- 
rience than  I  along  on  this  line  and  thousands  have  come  to 
grief  and  want  whom  I  have  advised  as  above,  and  who  were 
told  by  the  "agent"  that  I  was  a  chronic  sorehead,  kicker, 
knocker,  was  interested  in  some  other  place,  in  fine,  that  I 
was  a  prevaricator  and  might  have  said  a  liar — for  I  was  not 
present,  and  the  fools  believed  it,  and  in  many  cases  they  wrote 
me  for  aid  and  assistance  to  get  back  to  their  wives'  folks. 

Ignorance  is  no  excuse  at  law ;  one  that  has  been  swindled 
out  of  his  holdings  cannot  recover  it  on  the  plea  of  being  a 
fool.  The  baby  act  never  wins  back  lost  money,  betrayed 
confidence  or  sympathy.  I  know  it  is  a  happy  thought  to  think 
of  others  as  being  as  good,  truthful  and  honest  as  we  our- 
selves are;  but  to  put  it  to  practice  is  the  surest  way  of  bring- 
ing double  refined  sorrow,  grief,  want  and  misery. 

When  a  boy  I  was  taught  how  to  make  all  sorts  of  traps 
for  various  kinds  of  birds,  animals  and  fish — this  by  a  hired 
man  who  had  spent  years  trapping  and  exploring  in  the  then 
far  Northwest.  He  also  taught  me  how  to  make  chimes 
sticks  and  all  sorts  of  puzzles,  etc.  This  he  did  while  the  other 
hired  men  played  cards  or  pitched  horseshoes  at  a  pin  driven 
in  the  ground.  He  told  me  of  his  trappings  for  beaver,  bear 
and  all  other  animals  whose-  fur  was  valuable,  and  he  told 
me  of  the  then  far  away  wonderland  now  known  as  the  Yel- 


CALIFORNIA — WEST   COAST.  347 

lowstone  National  Park,  of  his  guiding  and  scouting  and 
fighting  with  Indians,  and  though  he  could  not  read  or  write, 
when  I  showed  him  the  large  maps  of  the  lands  he  had 
described  to  me  he  instinctively  placed  his  ringer  on  the  spot 
where  events  had  occurred.  I  felt  at  home  when,  forty  years 
afterwards,  I  visited  many  of  the  sections  he  had  told  me  of 
and  about  and  recognized  them  from  his  descriptions.  He 
knew  no  river  or  lake  by  any  name  our  geographers  have  given, 
but  called  them  by  the  name  known  to  the  Hudson  Bay  and 
Astor  Fur  Companies'  employes  which  they  had  derived  frorni 
the  natives.  The  Columbia  was  "Flow  with  the  sun;"  the 
Snake  of  Idaho,  "High  bank;"  Lake  of  the  Woods,  "Many 
fish  water."  He  was  a  quaint  genius  with  a  heart  as  large 
as  an  ox.  I  had  found  in  a  fence  corner  a  roosting  of  quails ; 
he  helped  me  make  a  trap  that  bagged  the  covey  of  fifteen. 
He  went  with  me  early  in  the  morning,  and  after  telling  all 
about  the  birds'  life  and  habits,  asked  me  if  I  did  not  think 
it  would  be  wrong  to  kill  such  a  beautiful  family.  I  said  yes ; 
then  he  told  me  to  turn  them  loose,  and  that  some  day  I  might 
be  liberated  myself  from  captivity,  repeating  to  me  these 
lines  which  have  followed  me  through  life: 

"The  mercy  I  to  others  show, 
That  mercy  show  to  me." 

That  I  shall  meet  this  old  teacher,  trapper,  guide  and 
explorer  in  the  far  away  land  of  the  soul  I  have  no  more  doubt 
than  I  have  a  right  to  doubt  my  own  existence. 

Some  days  before  writing  these  last  pages  of  my  book  I 
met  an  old  time  friend  who.  like  myself,  has  been  trying  to 
retire  from  active  life  after  having  raised  a  family,  all  well 
provided  for,  and  who  had  been  seeking  peace  of  mind  and 
comfort  of  body  from  not  planning,  pushing,  rushing,  driving 
late  and  early,  but  was  making -a  failure  of  it.  He  told  me, 
as  I  could  have  told  him  was  my  case,  that  he  could  not  be 


348  CALIFORNIA WEST    COAST. 

idle,  that  he  was  casting  about  to  go  into  business  again,  that 
he  was  satisfied  it  would  be  easier  and  better  to  wear  out  than 
to  rust  out.  I  advised  him  to  do  as  I  had  been  doing  the  past 
few  months,  i.  e.,  write  a  history  of  his  life,  an  autobiography 
for  the  benefit  of  his  friends,  tc  give  them  something  to  laugh 
about,  criticize,  swear  over  and  to  say,  "what  an  old  fool!" 
I  told  him  that  thereby  he  would  have  a  chance  to  live  life  over 
again  and  also  to  see  and  know  how  little  of  his  life  was  worth 
the  living;  that  what  a  fool  for  a  fact  he  had  been;  that  not 
to  tell  everything  he  knew  or  had  done  or  wanted  to  do  but 
failed  in ;  that  he  would  soon  find  all  he  wanted  to  keep  his 
body  and  mind  entirely  engaged.  He  sends  me  word  that 
he  is  going  to  take  my  advice  and  wants  a  copy  of  my  book 
to  read  before  he  starts.  Net  much,  Mr.  Jones,  I  am  going  to 
see  to  it  that  you  write  your  own  book  first,  lest  you  have 
the  laugh  all  on  me. 

In  India  there  is  a  proverb  to  the  effect  that  before  one 
becomes  a  man  he  must  marry  a  wife,  build  a  house  and  write 
a  book.  I've  done  all  three  twice,  whether  a  man  or  not.  I 
often  think  I  might  have  made  a  better  idiot  than  husband, 
builder  or  author,  and  though  through  life  I  have  always  had 
little  regard  for  the  opinions  of  others  respecting  my  acts,  I 
cannot  help  wishing  to  know  how  this,  my  last  effort,  will  be 
received  by  those  whom  I  have  always  regarded  as  my  friends, 
and  this  feeling  is  not  prompted  by  vanity  or  egotism,  but 
comes  from  the  fact  that  all  other  efforts  of  my  life  have  been 
so  acceptably  received  and  considered  that  today  I  am  classed 
amongst  the  heavy  taxpayers  in  many  places,  which  in  my 
mind  is  the  greatest  possible  evidence  of  worthiness  of  respect, 
— doubly  so  in  view  of  the  further  fact  that  I  enjoy  no  ill-got- 
ten gains. 


\_Wtth  an  inspiration  born  of  love  for  the  -woman  <who  after-wards 
became  his  happy  and  cherished  "wife,  Tbeo.  Noel,  in  1856,  made  his  first 
(and  last)  essay  at  poetry,  the  result  being  shown  in  the  following,  the 
original  manuscript,  faded  and  torn,  having  been  found  among  old  papers 
after  many  yearsj\ 


I  love  thee  because  thou  hast  ever 
A  smile  and  a  kind  word  for  me, 

When  those  who  should  cherish  me,  nevei 
Can  aught  but  my  foibles  see. 

I'll  quench  not  the  flame  that  arises 
From  perishing  hopes  of  my  youth, 

If  reason  the  weakness  despises, 

At  least  'twill  be  counseled  by  truth. 

Thy  love  o'er  my  sad  spirit  beameth 

Like  the  moon  on  the  dark  brow  of  night, 

Till  again  in   its  glory  it  seemeth 
That  even  its  shadows  are  bright. 

How  sacred  the  hope  I  have  cherished 
That  still  in  some  region  divine, 

When  all  which  is  earthly  has  perished 
My  spirit  shall  mingle  with  THINE. 


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